Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

REVIEW article

Front. Nutr.

Sec. Clinical Nutrition

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1655811

Animal Models for Understanding the Mechanisms of Malnutrition: A literature Review

Provisionally accepted
Shahzad  MuhammadShahzad Muhammad1Habab  Ali AhmadHabab Ali Ahmad2Mustajab  GhaniMustajab Ghani3Ziad  Al NabhaniZiad Al Nabhani4*
  • 1Zarqa University Faculty of Dentistry, Az-Zarqa, Jordan
  • 2Pak-Austria Fachhochschule Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, Haripur, Pakistan
  • 3Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, Pakistan
  • 4Universitat Bern, Bern, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Malnutrition, encompassing undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overnutrition, remain a pervasive global health challenge. This underprivileged condition contributes significantly to worldwide morbidity and mortality and causes profound impairments in growth, development, immune function, and metabolic health. Understanding the underlying biological mechanisms is critical, and animal models are indispensable tools for dissecting these complex pathways and for evaluating potential nutritional interventions under controlled conditions that are infeasible in humans. This literature review comprehensively examines rodent models and explores other diverse animal models used to investigate malnutrition, ranging from invertebrates (e.g., Drosophila) and fish (zebrafish) to mammals (piglets and non-human primates). We highlight how each model has yielded mechanistic insights into malnutrition-induced pathophysiology i.e. from altered metabolic signaling to immune dysfunction and critically evaluate their strengths and limitations in replicating the multifactorial nature of human malnutrition. Key considerations include the extent to which each model mimics human nutritional deficits or excesses, appropriate developmental stages, species-specific metabolic differences, and the influence of comorbid factors such as infection or gut microbiome alterations. We emphasize translational relevance by identifying where animal-derived findings align with clinical observations and where they diverge, underscoring the challenges in extrapolating preclinical results to human disease. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive resource to guide researchers in selecting appropriate animal models and interpreting their findings, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the translation of preclinical insights into improved strategies to address malnutrition.

Keywords: Malnutrition mechanism, rodent model, non-human primates, undernutrition, pigs, zebr afish

Received: 28 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Muhammad, Ahmad, Ghani and Al Nabhani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Ziad Al Nabhani, Universitat Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.