The molecularisation of nutritional science or – what is nutritional science and what is the point of it?

Part 2: The cognitive goals and the limits of molecular nutritional research

Alexander Ströhle, Frank Döring, Kiel

The second part of this article describes both the potential and the limitations of the microreductionist approach to molecular research in the nutritional sciences.

According to the authors, the aim of molecular research in nutritional science is to find molecular and mechanismic explanations for the conditions, properties and changes in organisms linked to the interaction between the organism and the nutritional environment. This should contribute to increased understanding of the phenomena of nutritional physiology, without totally reducing nutritional physiology to biochemistry and molecular biology. New working hypotheses and research strategies for nutritional physiology can then be generated on the basis of molecular knowledge. Nutritional research is considered to be a specific type of bioscience – multidisciplinary research at the interface between other biodisciplines.

Keywords: reductionism, biosciences, molecular nutritional research, scientific status, research strategy

Sie finden den Artikel in deutscher Sprache in Ernährungs Umschau 05/09 ab Seite 282.