The Role of Foods and Nutritional and Botanical Supplements for the Enhancement of Human Health and Performance
A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Nutrition and Public Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 October 2025 | Viewed by 1177
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The use of nutritional and botanical supplements for the enhancement of human health and performance has moved in the past 20 years from “alternative” health care to becoming an integrative part of a comprehensive self-care paradigm. Consumers seek lower-cost, safer alternatives to conventional medicines and pharmaceutical approaches. Often guided by traditional medicine practices and established nutrition science principles, innovative new discoveries have driven demand for dietary supplements to all-time highs. Nonetheless, more evidence from independent, high-quality research is needed to validate and extend reports already in the literature.
Fortified foods have been is use for decades with major public health benefits, such as the addition of iodine to salt and folic acid to grains. While these are intended to mitigate the risk of nutrient deficiencies, the enhancement of human health and performance goes beyond guidelines to prevent shortages and focuses more on nutrients and botanicals that can help optimize physiological and biochemical functioning.
Recognizing that supplements and fortified foods are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease, evidence for their use to complement a holistic approach to human health and performance has grown remarkably. The paradigm of precision nutrition further extends models of human performance, recognizing that many metabolic and gut microbiome factors are personalized to an individual. Accordingly, research studies and their applications must address at least these three topics: How much, how often, and in whom?
This Special Issue includes innovative research that will help address the challenges and opportunities facing nutrition researchers, health care professionals, and consumers today and in the future. We welcome both original research and reviews on this important topic.
Dr. Robert M. Hackman
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- foods
- dietary supplements
- botanical supplements
- metabolic disease
- public health
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