Food as Medicine

He and colleagues began studying the role of the metabolism of certain nutrients in women with a family history of spina bifida. This birth defect occurs when a baby’s spine and spinal cord do not develop completely, leading to lifelong complications and, often, premature death. The research indicated that an inability to properly metabolize B vitamins increased the likelihood of some women to have babies with neural tube defects, including spina bifida. The proposed solution was fortifying commonly consumed foods with folic acid, a synthetic B vitamin, even though most of the population did not have a dietary folate deficiency.  

When these fortified foods became mainstream in the U.S. in the late 90s, spina bifida rates rapidly decreased. “This was different from any other fortification program,” Stover said. “We were using food as medicine even though most people didn’t need it.” The solution has worked wonders. “Folic acid fortification saves 1,326 babies from neural tube defects every year, with direct medical expense savings of $508 million per year. In every country that has rolled out a folic acid fortification program, spina bifida rates have fallen dramatically,” he added.  

His groundbreaking work led Stover to serve on many panels with the Food and Drug Administration and World Health Organization, while he also taught and conducted research on these topics at Cornell University for 23 years. As the director of its Division of Nutritional Sciences, he studied biochemical, genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the relationships between nutrition and various illnesses. A well-respected scholar in the field, Stover is also an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Bigger in Texas 

In 2018, Stover brought his leadership and research talents to Texas A&M University. Why make the move? He visualized the complex challenges ahead in agriculture and nutrition, and, faced with the enormity of the problems he wanted to solve, he realized Texas A&M AgriLife was the best-equipped place to launch a new vision.  

“Several factors appealed to me,” he said. A combination of migration and natural increase have made Texas the country's fastest growing state. Texas also has one of the highest burdens of diet-related disease, and it’s especially concentrated in underserved communities. Agriculture is critical to the Texas economy, now and far into the future. Texas A&M houses one of the largest colleges of agriculture in the country, and the future of Texas agriculture is robust. Still, there is an increasing disconnect between people and their food due to urbanization.  

“If there was ever a place with the opportunity to restore the connection between people and their food and between agriculture and chronic disease, it’s Texas and Texas A&M AgriLife,” Stover said. 

Stover wants to remake the future of food with an emphasis on health—for people, the land and producers’ bottom lines. He’s also determined to connect science and action by improving the translation of findings to decision-makers, producers, communities and individuals.  

From Cotton to Carbon 

In the mid-20th century, producing enough food was essential to combating hunger worldwide. The resulting food system was therefore abundant, affordable and high in caloric density. While this system proved successful in its intended mission, the unintended consequences are obesity and related health conditions. Treating diet-related chronic diseases now costs Americans trillions of dollars annually.  

As a research accelerator, the institute will unite experts from across disciplines to help the U.S. pivot from producing the most calories to producing the most nutrition and the most value to the land and producers.   

One way the IHA will advance the field is through improved food products. A few recent successes include an enhanced variety of spinach that requires far less fertilizer, a modified sorghum variety with a higher micronutrient content for human food and animal feed, and, most impressively, a previously inedible cotton byproduct that can now be a highly nutritious food source. 

Cotton is an important crop in Texas, which produces more than 8 million bales annually. Once the fiber is harvested, the cottonseed byproduct is typically ground into a relatively low-cost feed supplement for cattle and poultry. Cottonseed contains a compound called gossypol that is toxic to humans; however, thanks to a slight gene manipulation, AgriLife researchers have created an ultra-low gossypol cotton variety that is edible for humans. Texas cotton growers can now grow traditional cotton or this higher value variety that can be marketed to food distributors. This research could provide producers a new revenue stream and consumers a novel healthy food product. 
 

Working within Texas communities will also be part of the institute’s mission. There are three distinct food traditions in Texas: African American, Hispanic and European. Each has different nutritional challenges. “You are what you eat, yes, that’s partially true. But you are also what your mother ate and what your ancestors ate,” Stover said, noting that there are complex factors far beyond personal choice that impact nutrition, including geography, genetics and epigenetics. “Food is not ‘one size feeds all.’”

As part of its outreach efforts, the institute will deploy mobile health vans to perform community-based research and improve health habits in urban and underserved communities. These “labs on wheels” will house tools like body composition scanners and blood pressure monitors and may partner with local farmers markets to deliver healthy food to residents. Equipped with information about healthy living, the vans will also generate research data by surveying citizens about their current food habits. For many Texans, they will be the institute’s first touchpoint and the first connection residents have with agriculture. 

While efforts like these won’t tell people what to eat, they will provide the tools, technology and information for individuals to make healthier decisions based on the context of their unique situations. 

“What are people eating now? How can we make it better?” Stover mused. “As the field of precision nutrition advances, we want to work within cultural contexts to improve food systems.” This goal extends beyond Texas’ borders. Stover has a vision for the institute to be “an authoritative source on these topics...a national resource for other land-grant universities to collaborate and nucleate activity that drives the agenda of agriculture as the solution to human, environmental and economic health.”  

Because in the end, it’s all about the people. “We can have the best science in the world, but it won’t matter if we can’t reach the people,” he said.