Sexual dimorphism in the context of nutrition and health

The diets and dietary constituents that we consume have a considerable impact on disease risk. Intriguingly these effects may be modulated to some extent by sex. Lack of female representation in nutritional studies as well as a lack of stratification by sex, has and continues to limit our understanding of these sex*diet interactions. Here we provide an overview of the current and available literature describing how exposure to certain dietary patterns (western style diet, Mediterranean diet, vegetarian/vegan, ketogenic diet) and dietary constituents (dietary fibre, polyunsaturated fatty acid and plant bioactive) influences disease risk in sex specific manner. Interestingly these sex differences appear to be highly disease specific. The identification of such sex differences in response to diet stresses the importance of sex stratification in nutritional research.