Guidance on Energy and Macronutrients across the Life Span

Poor nutrition is a major risk factor for and a leading preventable cause of chronic disease in the United States.1 Suboptimal diets contribute to one in five deaths worldwide.2 "Food is medicine" interventions are being increasingly studied as a means of preventing and treating multiple chronic diseases.3,4 Unlike traditionally approved medicines for which molecular targets are well established, dietary intake comprises a large variety of food ingredients, and their functions are spread out over a lifetime. Providing recommendations to patients, specifically those with chronic diseases, on what and how much to eat is thus more complex than most health recommendations. Here we present an overview of contemporary nutritional concepts, with a specific focus on energy and macronutrients.