Human life span is too long and not suitable for such studies, so mice are used pretty much because their life span is much shorter and because they're already used for pretty much everything.
Mice and men as mammals have the same heritage and a metabolism which is very, very similar, almost identical - compared to the metabolism of insects, for example.
However, the millions of years of separate evolution made us the most capable omnivores on the planet, who learned to cook, became monogamous, evolved intelligence and grand-paternal care etc. We even evolved to drink milk as adults and eat gluten. So you can't possibly come up with conclusions about such complex species by looking at a simple creature that is an evolutionary dead end.
If you're using mice for your study, you can find out how something affects a mammalian species in general, e.g. radiation, but not how nutrition affects humans - because human nutrition is unique. The scientists basically don't know much about nutrition to begin with, and I suppose they're trying to figure out the basics for now, some general rules which apply to all mammals, and that's why they're using mice. A less complex organism.
But you'll get nowhere if you're researching traits unique to the human race by looking at another species which doesn't have those traits.
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