LAUSR

The relation between diet and health has been one of the most complex, often controversial, topics in both public discussions and scientific circles. The invitation to deliver the 164th Cutter Lecture at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offered an opportunity to summarize my efforts over the last four decades to understand this area, which included work on both methodological issues and examples of substantive analyses. I appreciate the invitation of Dr. Hofman to encapsulate these thoughts as an essay for the European Journal of Epidemiology, and hope that this may be helpful to others working in this area or taking on new challenges in unrelated topics. To begin, I would note that this path has not been lonely. I have gained enormously along the way from the insights and efforts of many other faculty members, students, and postdoctoral fellows, some of whom I will mention specifically, but it is not possible to mention everyone here. While insights and feedback from many colleagues around the world have been invaluable, the concentration of energy and commitment to research at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health has been unique; without this, much of what I have been able to have accomplished would have been impossible. I must also gratefully acknowledge the critical public financial support for this research provided through the National Institutes of Health. Early experiences