A study on personalised nutrition run by the Eurecat technology centre points to the potential of nutritional recommendations aimed at uniform groups of people based on their metabolic affinities to improve their eating habits and optimise their health.
The study, which is part of the Preventomics project, harnesses omics analysis combined with genetics and analysis of classical clinical and biochemical markers to perform this grouping according to the metabolism of each person, a process called metabotyping.
The results of this study have been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and reported in the journal’s editorial, which underscores the potential of personalised and precision nutrition to improve nutritional habits at the individual and general population level compared to traditional generic nutritional recommendations.
The study classified the 193 participating volunteers on the basis of biomarkers linked to carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, inflammation, oxidative stress and microbiota with a potential effect on the metabolism of each individual to make specific recommendations according to their group.
Here, the scientific paper has revealed that with the Preventomics system it is possible to identify individuals who will have a greater response to certain dietary interventions in their organism compared to those who need other recommendations.
The results have also suggested positive trends in participants in terms of healthier food choices coupled with improvements in health-related parameters associated with the nutritional recommendations made and based on specific metabotypes.
The study found that the innovative approach in the Preventomics project has demonstrated that the recommender system can characterise each individual, making it possible to design personalised nutritional advice concerning their usual diet which is effective in improving their habits and health. It can also tell beforehand which individuals will respond better to certain diets.
The personalised nutrition system developed by Eurecat as part of the Preventomics project puts forward nutritional and lifestyle recommendations to enable each person to make changes in their eating patterns, increasing or decreasing the consumption of certain foods, to optimise the working of their metabolism and achieve optimal long-term health while reducing the risk of developing diseases which are highly prevalent in the population and closely tied to eating habits, such as some cardiovascular diseases, insulin resistance and obesity.
Positive changes in dietary habits and benefits in some of the general health parameters have been identified among the participants in the nutritional intervention study after four months, suggesting that recommendations using this digital system might be beneficial for people in the long term.
An online e-commerce simulation was built for the project making it possible to draw up a shopping list based on a real supermarket product catalogue following Preventomics’ personalised recommendations which were anchored in omics analysis of 49 biomarkers and 180 genetic variants. The online system was also equipped with a programme to encourage behavioural change.
The study involved a multidisciplinary team from Eurecat with researchers from the Biotechnology Area and the Nutrition and Health Unit, the Digital Health Unit and the Centre for Omic Sciences, a joint Rovira i Virgili University and Eurecat unit. The Preventomics project, funded by the European Horizon 2020 programme, has also featured an international consortium made up of 19 partners.
Reference:
A single-blinded, randomized, parallel intervention to evaluate genetics and omics-based personalized nutrition in general population via an e-commerce tool: The PREVENTOMICS e-commerce study, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 120, Issue 1, July 2024. Lorena Calderón-Pérez, Xavier Escoté, Judit Companys, Juan María Alcaide-Hidalgo, Mireia Bosch, Montserrat Rabassa, Anna Crescenti, Rosa M Valls, Anna Pedret, Rosa Sola, Roger Mariné, Katherine Gil-Cardoso, Miguel A Rodríguez, Héctor Palacios, Antoni del Pino, María Guirro, Núria Canela, David Suñol, Mar Galofré, Sebastia Galmés, Andreu Palou-March, Francisca Serra, Antoni Caimari, Biotza Gutiérrez, Josep M del Bas.
