German Institute of Human Nutrition,
University of Potsdam
Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Germany

The German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE) was established by the Minister of Science, Research, and Cultural Affairs of Brandenburg as an independent institution (Stiftung des oeffenlichen Rechts). It derives from the Zentralinstitut fur Ernaehrung (Central Institute for Nutrition) of the former Academy of Sciences of the GDR and is thus based on more than 50 years of research in the area of human nutrition. It was reestablished 1992.

The DIfE is a member of a group of scientific institutions (Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, WGL). The institute has the task of gathering new evidence in the relationship between nutrition and health. Nutritional scientists, physicians, food chemists, biochemists, molecular biologists, and immunologists cooperate to achieve this. It is their purpose to carry out further research on the fundamentals of prevention of nutrition-linked diseases. This requires an extensive spectrum of methods, ranging from biochemical analyses at the test-tube level to experiments with animals and to the clinical observation of patients with nutrition-related diseases. As a result, scientifically-based recommendations for a healthy lifestyle including nutrition are to be made known to the general public.