It seems that many nutrition experiments [directed at human diet] are carried on

Question

It seems that many nutrition experiments [directed at human diet] are carried on laboratory mice. Is there any justification that nutrition that is good or bad for laboratory mice will also be same way applicable to humans ?

I wonder because mice and humans, although both being mammals, are separated probably by tens millions years of separate evolution. By the "mammals" logic, dolphins, cows, wolves, and goats, all being mammals, shall have same diet as mice ?

Sometimes one man's food is another man's poison (lactose differences for example, due to genetic differences). That's man to man, same species. On what is "transfer of nutritional information" from species to species based ?

Explanation / Answer

My impression is that the use of mice as human models for anything is primarily the result of historical precedent. A lot of work has been done to breed different lines of mice for particular purposes, and a lot of related methodology has therefore been established. Similarly, a lot of comparative genetic/genomic work has been done to characterize similarities between the mouse and human genomes. Developing similar methods and resources for another species could potentially require a huge investment of time and resources.

Additional reasons are purely technical and practical. Non-human primates are demonstrably more closely related to humans than mice, but breeding, storing, and working with these animals is a much more complicated issue.

No model of human nutrition is going to be perfect, whether it was modeled in mice, primates, or even other humans (as you suggested). This does not mean, however, that we cannot gain insight from the models just because they are not perfect.

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