Alan Cohen has a Ph.D in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Missouri, followed by postdoctoral work in epidemiology and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins, the University of Toronto, and the University of Sherbrooke. He is currently associate professor at the University of Sherbrooke, where he has taught since 2010. He is an expert in complex systems dynamics and the aging process, and develops multivariate biomarker indices to quantify aging.
Using the Geometric Framework for Nutrition, we examine how nutrient intake patterns (24-hour recall) relate to patterns of homeostatic dysregulation in an older Quebec population, the NuAge cohort. Homeostatic dysregulation is quantified as the statistical distance of clinical biomarker profiles. Broadly, we show few simple answers, with optimal levels of each nutrient often being (1) intermediate rather than high or low; (2) dependent on multiple other nutrients; and (3) dependent on what dysregulation systems are considered. These results contradict the simplistic approaches to nutrition often evidenced in the popular press.