Announcements

We are currently inviting Special Issue proposals for the Section "Nutritional Immunology". If you are an active researcher in the relevant field and are passionate about cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor Ms. Aria Chen (aria.chen@mdpi.com).

Diet plays a role in almost every function in the body. Among other factors, diet is critical in maintaining optimal immune function. Extensive research has demonstrated the immunomodulatory properties of particular nutrients; however, in many cases, the mechanisms still remain unclear.

This Section invites authors to submit original research and review articles describing the impact and mechanisms underlying the relationship between nutrition and immunity. We are interested in articles describing this complex relationship in humans and also in animal models, either in health or during pathological processes, in which the dietary compounds may act by modulating immune response. Studies performed in appropriate in vitro approaches are also welcome. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com).

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

The completion of the human genome sequencing project and the advances in high-throughput ‘omic’ technologies place nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics at the very core of the modern nutrition science. These achievements are enabling novel hypothesis- and nonhypothesis-driven approaches to study how an individual’s genome and other variable biological layers (epigenome, gut microbiome, health status, etc.) impact and modulate the relationship between nutrition and health and are themselves affected/programmed by nutritional conditions, particularly at early life stages. Current goals are to define the biomarkers of effect and exposure, biological targets, and mechanisms of action of dietary factors/patterns, both in health and disease states (particularly diet-related noncommunicable complex diseases), to translate this knowledge into personalized nutrition strategies for optimal health and disease prevention, and to advance our understanding of the impact of diet on systems biology.

This Section of Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643) aims to publish contributions on all aspects of nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics. We encourage the submission of manuscripts that provide novel and mechanistic insights and papers that report significant advances in the field.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: nutrigenetics; nutrigenomics; functional genomics; metabolomics; nutriomics; microbiota and microbiomics; epigenetics and epigenomics; gene–diet interactions; personalized nutrition; dietary patterns; metabolic programming; biomarkers; circulating RNAs; obesity; diabetes; cardiovascular disease; and cancer.

Nutrients is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal advancing knowledge in the field of human nutrition. Nutrients is fully covered by the leading indexing services, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus/SciVerse and Google Scholar. Full-text articles are also available in PubMed Central. The newly released Impact Factor of Nutrients is 5.719.

The following information should be provided in a proposal:

• A 150–200-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords relating to the topic;
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least 20 potential contributors, or a list of 8 planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making pre-check decisions on whether a manuscript can be sent out for peer review;
• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition as a Guest Editor of Nutrients;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• Inviting senior authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue with certain discounts;
• If ten or more papers are published in this Special Issue, a Special Issue book can be made and a hard copy sent to each Guest Editor.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com) for further information. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

We are now accepting Special Issue proposals for the new Section "Carbohydrates" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients/sections/Carbohydrates) of the journal Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643). If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor Ms. Jessie Guo (jessie.guo@mdpi.com).

Dietary carbohydrates are a heterogeneous group of molecules derived from plants that include mono- and disaccharides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and fiber. It is well documented that the health effects of dietary carbohydrate can be detrimental when high amounts of fructose-containing sugar are consumed, or beneficial when high amounts of fiber are consumed.

Yet more understanding is needed about the mechanisms by which added sugar mediates detrimental health effects, and how these effects differ from those of the other carbohydrates and non-nutritive sweeteners.

Similarly, there is still much to learn about the protective effects of food fibers and fiber supplements, especially those that are mediated via effects on microbiota. The health effects of a diet high in carbohydrate compared to a high-fat diet continue to be debated, and the answer is likely affected by the carbohydrate source (simple versus complex, refined versus unrefined, grain versus legume) and/or dependent on the genotype or phenotype of the individual. Thus, the “Carbohydrates” Section of Nutrients is open to increasing understanding of the heterogeneity of dietary carbohydrates and determining the carbohydrate components of the optimal diet for the promotion of health and prevention of disease.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Added sugar and the pathology of obesity and chronic disease:
• Added sugar and refined complex carbohydrate;
• Added sugar and naturally occurring sugars;
• Added sugar and non-nutritive sweeteners;
• Added sugar in solid food and sugar-sweetened beverage.
• High complex carbohydrate diet and the pathology of obesity and chronic disease:

• High complex carbohydrate diet and high-fat diet;
• Refined and unrefined complex carbohydrate diet;
• Food-specific sources of carbohydrate (e.g., legume versus grain);
• Effects of genotype or phenotype on metabolic response to high carbohydrate diet.

• Protective effects of fiber:

• Food fiber and fiber supplements;
• Intact fiber and pulverized fiber (e.g., whole bean versus hummus, whole fruit versus smoothie).

Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access journal advancing knowledge in the field of human nutrition. Nutrients is fully covered by the leading indexing services, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus/SciVerse and Google Scholar. Full-text articles are also available in PubMed Central. The newly released Impact Factor of Nutrients is 5.719.

The following information should be provided in a proposal:

• A 150–200-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords relating to the topic;
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least 20 potential contributors, or a list of 8 planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making pre-check decisions on whether a manuscript can be sent out for peer-review;
• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition as a Guest Editor of Nutrients;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• Inviting senior authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue with certain discounts;
• If ten or more papers are published in this Special Issue, we can make a Special Issue book and send a hard copy to each Guest Editor.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com) for further details and clarifications. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

We are currently recruiting Editorial Board Members for the new Section "Hydration" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients/sections/Hydration), to be published in the journal Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643). If you are interested in serving on the Editorial Board, or have potential candidates to recommend, please reach out to us.

Applicants for the Editorial Board positions may nominate a specific section in which they feel their expertise lies, or they may nominate themselves as an Editorial Board Member for the entire journal.

Nutrients is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal containing research in the field of human nutrition, advancing the knowledge in this area. Nutrients is fully covered by the leading indexing services, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus/SciVerse, and Google Scholar. Full-text articles are also available in PubMed Central. The newly released impact factor of Nutrients is 5.719.

As an Editorial Board Member, you will have the following responsibilities:

• Pre-screening submissions and making decisions on whether they should be rejected or accepted for processing;
• Editing a Special Issue on a topic related to your research;
• Recommending timely topics and suggesting potential Guest Editors;
• Publishing/inviting/recommending one paper, free of charge, per year;
• Identifying appropriate conferences for the promotion of Nutrients;
• Promoting the journal at conferences and on social media.

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor Ms. Coco Lv (coco.lv@mdpi.com).

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Nutrients Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that we are launching two new Sections in the open-access journal Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643), which publishes reviews, research papers, and communications in all areas of hydration and geriatric nutrition research.

The two new Sections being launched are as follows:

“Hydration”

“Geriatric Nutrition”

If you are interested in publishing your research, please do not hesitate to contact us at nutrients@mdpi.com; we welcome original research articles and reviews in the above-mentioned fields.

Nutrients Editorial Office

Video message from the Editor-in-Chief of Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643) and the Section Editors-in-Chief:

Dear readers,

Notwithstanding the viral storm that has blasted the world over the last two years, we are here to talk about science, ready to start the new year with unfailing enthusiasm. 

It has been a difficult time for us all. Both our work environments and our social lives have been greatly affected, and we have experienced an unprecedented feeling of social isolation and restraint, as well as anxiety for the future of ourselves and the whole community.

Fortunately, we were blessed by the might of the web, which has helped us in the face of so many difficulties. We have learned how to explore and communicate in a virtual world—slang such as call and link and tele-this or tele-that has penetrated our language and become our leitmotiv to survive isolation and loneliness. This could not in any way compensate for the collapse of personal interactions, but it removed what was initially perceived as an insurmountable wall between us and the others, helping us to realize we were not alone after all. In looking back at the last two years, we might conclude that the Sars-Cov2 pandemic changed our lifestyle and made our days less frantic and neurotic. We suddenly found ourselves with plenty of time for thinking, putting ideas together, and brainstorming in the search for new scientific avenues.

In reviewing how the scientific literature embraced thousands of solid or naïve reports on the evil virus, I have the impression that we never stopped conducting science. Looking at how our journal faired during the pandemic, it is clear that our authors faced the challenges presented to them head on and broadened their focus on what a healthy lifestyle means. We all became, more than ever, aware of the importance of nutrition as a preventive or curative indispensable strategy. As a result, nutrition research is stronger than before and represents a unique arena to welcome translational collaborations and efforts to fight COVID-19. More importantly, nutrition research has become a flagship of a revitalized interest in life and the environment.

I wish you all a healthy and fruitful 2022!

The whole team in “Pediatric Nutrition” wishes all co-workers and authors a very happy 2022 and we thank you for your devotion and interest.

On behalf of the Editorial Office of Nutrients we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Nutrients’ authors, readers, Editorial Board members, and reviewers, thanking them for their kind and continued participation in the journal in 2021.

This year, we have published many relevant findings in the field of human nutrition. For example, several important papers have highlighted the role of vitamin D in reducing the severity and mortality rate of COVID-19, or other factors such as vitamin K or zinc, and how the pandemic has changed the dietary habits and physical activity due to lockdowns. Nutrients has also published studies demonstrating the positive health effects of nuts and coffee and has reviewed the benefits of fasting and its application. We have also seen research concerning meta-analysis, showing that animal protein tends to be more beneficial for lean mass than plant protein, a work suggesting that a ketogenic low-carbohydrate high-fat diet induces a deleterious blood lipid profile, and an innovative study using a metagenomics and metabolomics approach to show how western and Mediterranean diets differently affect gut microbiota metabolism. Finally, some studies have also shed more light on controversial topics such as the effects of the consumption of potatoes and saturated fats on health.

In 2021, the impact factor of Nutrients has increased to 5.719 and thanks to all the excellent papers we have published in 2021, we expect to further increase the impact of Nutrients in 2022.

We wish you a very happy new year, and we welcome submissions of even more excellent articles in 2022.

Wishing you health and happiness in the New Year ahead.

Sports nutrition is a rapidly expanding area of scientific investigation. The interaction of exercise and nutrition is compelling and complex. Advances in measurement technologies have allowed hundreds of metabolites, proteins, lipids, and genes to be measured simultaneously. This approach has improved the capacity to provide accurate and practical guidelines for athletes. The “Sports Nutrition” Section of the journal Nutrients is devoted to advancing scientific understanding, and I encourage you to send us your best papers in 2022.

Wish for Nutrients to be nutritious and important to all fields of biological research.

Dear readers,

Congratulations to all those who contributed to this year’s “Nutrition and Metabolism” Section and to our supportive readers and editorial staff. We were pleased to receive very informative manuscripts on diverse topics. The Section published about 400 manuscripts representing the scientific activities of researchers and scholars from the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The scope of the science is broad reflecting the many aspects of nutrition and metabolism research being conducted in well-established research centers.

We look forward to your continued support by submitting reviews, original research, and/or editorials on topics that are of greatest importance to nutrition and metabolism. In these challenging times of the pandemic, scientists are to be commended for their resilience and commitment to their work. As we learn to navigate the present health challenge, we anticipate additional submissions on new aspects of the role of the immune system in metabolism and new strategies to enhance immunity through nutrition. We encourage you to continue to submit your research findings to this section next year. We urge you to encourage your fellows and students to publish their thesis work and to use this forum as a key resource of innovative research in nutrition and metabolism.

We extend to our readership, authors, and very able editorial staff best wishes for a productive 2022 and for better control of the healthcare challenges we confront worldwide.

Dear readers,

On behalf of the “Nutrition Epidemiology” Section of our journal Nutrients, we wish all authors and readers a happy Christmas time and a scientifically productive 2022, with our best wishes for your personal and familial life.

Dear readers and authors,

The last two years have been very challenging to all of us. People all over the world lost loved ones and many suffered economic hardship. Even though the pandemic is not over, it is thanks to the outstandingly fast development of COVID-19 vaccines that many of us will be able to meet friends and family in this holiday season and hopefully lead a more normal life in 2022. Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity to send a word of gratitude to our fellow scientists who worked hard to develop the COVID-19 vaccines.

Additionally, I would also like to take the opportunity to thank you, the readers and the authors, for following Nutrients and for publishing more than 400 excellent original manuscripts and review articles this year in the “Clinical Nutrition” Section. Indeed, if I look at the many submissions and manuscripts published in this Section, but also the journal in general throughout the past year, I have the impression we never stopped engaging with science, and that nutrition research is an ever-developing discipline being one of the keys to a healthy life.

Happy Holidays to everyone and a healthy and fruitful 2022!

As we near the end of another challenging year, a Season’s Greeting full of enthusiasm for the progress we have made in the world of nutrition research and optimism for our future progress is the order of the day. It is easy for me to be enthusiastic about progress. I was lucky to stumble on a research path that has made particularly impressive progress during the last two decades—the metabolic effects of added sugar consumption. I assess this progress starting in 2001 with our NIH summary statement for our first R01 proposal to conduct a well-controlled dietary intervention study on the metabolic effects of fructose and glucose. A reviewer panned our hypothesis that fructose consumption increased risk factors for CVD, stating that it had already been disproven 30 years ago when it was proposed by John Yudkin (eventually, and luckily, we got funded anyway). Fast forward to 2015, reviewers of our new proposals were questioning the need for any more dietary intervention studies on added sugar. Specifically, one reviewer wrote that everyone, except those associated with the sugar industries, knows that the consumption of sugar is bad for health. While the comment is arguable, specifically concerning the “everyone knows” part, it certainly suggests a lot of results were generated and a lot of learning occurred in only 13 years! We can also reasonably claim that the change in the 2015 US Dietary Guideline for the upper limit of added sugar consumption is indicative of outstanding progress; down from 25% of daily energy to 10% of daily energy. However, the U.S. per capita consumption of added sugar (sucrose plus HFCS) has only decreased 17% since 2002 (from 350 to 292 Kcal/day), therefore the average level of added sugar consumption in the U.S. is still closer to 15% of daily energy than 10%. Furthermore, the decrease consisted of solely high fructose corn syrup (HFCS); sucrose intake has increased by 16 kcal/day since 2002. (Nutrition educators, please broadcast the finding of our latest publication: Liver fat, insulin resistance, circulating lipids/lipoproteins, and uric acid are significantly increased by consumption of sucrose, and the increases are comparable to those caused by consumption of HFCS.)

Clearly, we need to keep adding to the evidence base that demonstrates that the refined Western diet is a mediator of chronic disease, ensure that the evidence is translated to dietary advice and education for the public, and develop and test new strategies that will promote dietary change. Does my enthusiasm for our recent progress on the topic of added sugar translate to optimism that we can make equally impressive progress on the goals stated above? I am not sure. I worry that the challenge of obtaining funding to conduct a clinical dietary intervention study, the gold standard of nutrition research, has sky-rocketed alarmingly during the last decade. The researcher must not only meet the NIH standards for being significant and innovative (a challenge in itself), but many reviewers are judging the study design (approach) based on the same standards set for evidence-based medicine. These evidence-based medicine standards for sample size, duration, direct disease outcomes, blinding, control of confounding variables, and compliance monitoring are achievable for a Phase III drug study, for practical, ethical, and methodological reasons, they are not realistic standards for clinical dietary intervention studies.

Furthermore, I think summary statements from my recent unfunded NIH proposals illustrate additional challenges that face nutrition researchers who are seeking funding for clinical dietary intervention studies. For example, in the same summary statement, two reviewers offered completely non-reconcilable critiques of my plan to provide the human subjects with 6 weeks of standardized meals and beverages prepared in our metabolic kitchen. The first reviewer described the dietary protocol as a weakness as it “...is so tightly controlled it is unclear how generalizable these findings will be”; the second reviewer described the dietary protocol as a weakness as the subjects “are not brought into a monitored or controlled setting” for meal consumption, thus may cheat.

I was also disconcerted when a reviewer of my most recent unfunded proposal stated that it was unclear how elucidating the mechanism between consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain would result in public health policy to reduce the availability of SSB. It is the objective of nearly all dietary intervention studies to generate results that will influence public health policy. While many of us researchers put substantial effort into trying to ensure our published results have an impact, the role of translating research evidence into public health policy belongs to others specifically trained for this. Luckily, more and more of our young people are embracing this role, and from 1992 to 2016 the number of post-graduate degrees conferred in public health has more than tripled.

One of the hurdles that the current and future public health advocates have to deal with in their efforts to impact dietary policy is gaps in the evidence base. Filling these gaps is our role, and it takes three types of studies to do this: 1. The observational studies that can show associations between dietary components and health or disease; 2. The basic animal research that can demonstrate causal mechanism between dietary components and health or disease; and 3. Clinical dietary intervention studies to test the relevance of the mechanisms in humans using surrogate markers of health and disease. With all three, we will arm the public health advocates with the best possible evidence base. Therefore, we have to work to ensure that unrealistic standards do not impede the conduct of clinical dietary intervention studies. Dietary intervention studies will never test CVD or diabetes as outcomes, only their surrogates. They will never have sample sizes or durations to rival Phase III drug studies. If they use a free-living/free-choice dietary protocol, the results are subject to confounding by other dietary variables. If they use the standardized dietary protocol in which subjects are confined to consuming only the study diet, mis-compliance is still possible and the results may not be generalizable to real-world diets. While it may be my fantasy, it is not possible, even with unlimited funding, to conduct a dietary intervention study that will not have limitations and that will single-handedly impact dietary policy and consumer behavior. This must not become an excuse not to conduct them. Let us work together to ensure that it does not!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

As the pandemic continues to rage around the world in 2021, nutrition research is still being conducted, despite the impact. To fight against COVID-19, the link between vitamin D, zinc, polyphenols, other nutrients and resistance to infection and immune function has received particular attention. The results of these studies have shown that adequate and appropriate intake of nutrition is essential for strengthening immunity and preventing the infection of COVID-19. Investigations have concluded that quarantine does changes dietary behavior and physical activity, eventually impacting the health of the population. Nutrition and healthy aging, food allergies, mechanisms and effects of dietary factors on chronic diseases are the focus of research; moreover, the food environment, food systems, low carbon and sustainability are the focus of researchers.

In the coming year, 2022, as researchers, our scientific research in nutrition and health will never stop. We will continue to make new advances in our own research fields in order to benefit both mankind and nature.

Happy Holidays! I wish you all a healthy and fruitful 2022!

We are currently inviting Special Issue proposals for the new section "Protein". If you are an active researcher in the relevant field and are passionate about cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor Ms. Susan Yu (susan.yu@mdpi.com).

Dietary protein is fundamental to health. Authors are invited to submit original research and review articles to this Section, describing the impact and mechanisms underlying the relationship between dietary protein (and its constituents, e.g., peptides and amino acids) and metabolism/physiology. We are interested in articles describing these relationships in humans and in animal models, in health, across the life course, or during pathological processes, wherein the dietary constituents of protein impact physiological functioning. We also welcome studies performed using appropriate “in vitro” approaches.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com).

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

We are currently accepting Special Issue proposals for the new Section of Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643), "Lipids" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients/sections/Lipids). If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor, Ms. Jin Wang (jin.wang@mdpi.com).

Lipids play an important role in the development of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental illness. Some fatty acids and lipid-soluble substances have shown the ability to modulate the pathophysiology of these lifestyle-related diseases due to their unique absorption route, selective incorporation into various tissues, and influence on metabolic pathways, resulting in the alteration of blood lipid levels, pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators, platelet aggregation, eicosanoid production, and hormonal responses.

We welcome original research articles and reviews describing basic, clinical, and applied studies representing novel and significant advances in all subject areas relevant to lipids and lipid-related diseases.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following: medium chain fatty acids; omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids; monounsaturated fatty acids; oils; cholesterol; fat-soluble vitamins; lipids in the pathology of a disease; blood lipids and lipoproteins; membrane lipids; impact on inflammation, platelet aggregation, and blood pressure; functional foods and lipids; carotenoids; and polyphenols.

Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access journal that aims to advance knowledge in the field of human nutrition. Nutrients is fully covered by the world’s leading indexing services, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus/SciVerse, and Google Scholar. Full-text articles are also available on PubMed Central. Nutrients has recently received a newly released Impact Factor of 5.719.

The following information should be provided in any submitted proposals:

• A 150–200-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords relating to the topic;
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least 20 potential contributors or a list of 8 planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue;
• Checking the suitability of the abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making pre-check decisions to determine whether a manuscript can be sent out for peer-review;
• Making decisions as to whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition for undertaking the role of a Guest Editor for Nutrients;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• The opportunity to invite senior authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue with certain discounts;
• If ten or more papers are published in this Special Issue, we will also be able to publish this Special Issue as a book and will send a hard copy to each Guest Editor.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com) for further detail and clarification. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

We are now recruiting Special Issue proposals for the new section "Nutrition and Obesity" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients/sections/Nutrition_Obesity) of the journal Nutrients (ISSN: 2072-6643). If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor Ms. Elisa Yuan (elisa.yuan@mdpi.com).

Over the last few decades, obesity has become the most prevalent metabolic disorder worldwide. Excess adiposity increases the risk for the development of cardiometabolic alterations, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cancer, among others. In recent years, our knowledge of obesity has greatly improved, but more research is needed to better understand the mechanisms underlying the development of this metabolic condition and its pathophysiology, and to optimize its management.

We welcome original research articles describing basic, clinical and applied studies representing novel and significant advances in all areas relevant to obesity and related disorders, as well as reviews. The areas of research covered by this section relate to all aspects of obesity diagnosis, pathophysiology and treatment.

Topics include, but are not limited to the following: Obesity; Adipose tissue pathophysiology; Biomarkers; Physical activity; Adipokines; Pediatric obesity; Obesity phenotyping; Omics studies; Regulation of appetite; Body composition; Energy expenditure; Genetics; Cardiometabolic risk factors; Nutritional epidemiology; Animal models; Aging; New technologies (for phenotyping or treatment); In vitro models, including organoids; Psychological aspects; Metabolic syndrome; Type 2 diabetes; Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; Other obesity-related metabolic disturbances; Dietary treatment; Lifestyle intervention; Pharmacological treatment; Metabolic surgery; Intermittent fasting; Cardiometabolic risk improvement after weight loss; Body composition changes; Weight regain; Predictors of treatment success; Use of apps for weight loss; Novel targets; Transgenerational effects; and Treatment of children and adolescents.

Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access journal advancing knowledge in the field of Human Nutrition. Nutrients is fully covered by the leading indexing services, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus/SciVerse and Google Scholar. Full-text articles are also available in PubMed Central. The newly released Impact Factor of Nutrients is 5.717.

The following information should be provided in a proposal:

• A 150–200-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords relating to the topic;
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least 20 potential contributors, or a list of 8 planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making pre-check decisions on whether a manuscript can be sent out for peer-review;
• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition as a Guest Editor of Nutrients;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• Inviting senior authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue with certain discounts;
• If ten or more papers are published in this Special Issue, we can make a Special Issue book and send a hard copy to each Guest Editor.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (nutrients@mdpi.com) for further details and clarifications. We look forward to receiving your proposals.