What is personalized nutrition?

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Some researchers are concerned that our current technology may not be sophisticated enough to find the answers we are looking for in the burgeoning field of precision nutrition or personalized nutrition . So, what is precision or personalized nutrition, and why does the government need to invest so much in it?

Precision nutrition is an approach to develop more targeted and effective dietary interventions based on an individual's individual characteristics. In other words, correct nutrition is an attempt to answer the question: "What should I eat to stay healthy?" Researchers analyze everything they can about you - your race, weight, genetics, gender, lifestyle... - to try to come up with an eating plan that helps limit disease. In this article, we will provide useful information for you to understand more precisely about personalized nutrition.

1. What is personalized nutrition?

Personalized nutrition a.k.a. precision nutrition, may sound like a new fad diet, but it's actually a credible emerging area of ​​research backed by the National Institutes of Health. National Health under the umbrella of precision medicine. Precision medicine studies how to improve individualized treatment of disease and precise nutrition to that individual's diet.
Both approaches develop interventions to prevent or treat chronic diseases based on a person's unique characteristics such as DNA, race, sex, health history and lifestyle habits living. The common goal of the two approaches is to provide safer, more effective ways to prevent and treat disease by providing more targeted and precise strategies.
Exact nutrition assumes that each person may have a different reaction to specific foods and nutrients, so the best diet for this person will definitely differ the best of others. How long have we been tempted to follow a flashy diet that a celebrity or friend advertises to help them lose 10 pounds or “cure” their diabetes? But with correct nutrition this practice would be discouraged, as individual blueprints formulated for each specific individual may require a single diet plan to be successful.
Precision nutrition also considers the microbiome, beneficial bacteria in our body to play an important role in various daily internal activities. Each person has a unique system of microorganisms and bacteria and is unique to each individual. Normally, our diets determine what kind of bacteria live in our digestive tract, but according to correct nutrition the opposite is true: The type of bacteria we feed can determine how we break down. What are some foods and which foods are most beneficial to our bodies?

2. How exactly does nutrition work?

Precision nutrition focuses on specific individuals, not a group of people.
High-quality nutrition studies have shown that for the average person, eating more vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and less processed foods made with added sugars and salts can help reduce the risk of various diseases. However, when studies like the PREDICT 1 trial focused on an individual's response to food, they discovered significant changes in blood biochemical tests for glucose and triglyceride readings right away. even when individuals are eating the same meals.
The microbiota of the participants in this study was found to be responsible for the changes in blood triglycerides after a meal. Non-food factors such as sleep, physical activity, and mealtime also play a role in causing changes in blood glucose and triglyceride levels after meals. As a result, an individual may see additional benefits if individualized nutritional guidelines are followed in addition to general health recommendations.
Accurate Dietetics assesses a person's DNA, microbiome and metabolic response to specific foods or diets to determine the most effective eating plan for fish individual to prevent or treat disease, thereby improving the quality of treatment for that individual.

3. Applying correct nutrition in disease treatment

There are specific dietary treatments based on genetic data that have been used for many years, e.g. gluten-free diet for the management of celiac disease, lactose-free diet for those People are lactose intolerant and avoid using phenylalanine (an amino acid found in protein foods and some artificial sweeteners) in the diet for a genetic disorder called phenylketonuria (or PKU).
However, precise nutrition is in its early stages and it is too early to be introduced as a treatment for chronic diseases in the general population. Research is underway on the application of correct nutrition for obesity, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers and type 2 diabetes.

For example, traditional management of type 2 diabetes often places less emphasis on maintaining healthy lifestyle factors (exercise, diet, achieving a healthy weight), and more mainly on drug use. Precision nutrition can further refine diabetes management by looking closely at the following areas:
How a person's DNA may be involved in the absorption and metabolism of certain nutrients , thereby predicting how the person would respond to a particular diet. The measurement of metabolites (small molecules produced during the breakdown and digestion of food) indicates a person's long-term diet, whether it is eating fruits and vegetables regularly. or consume high amounts of saturated fat from eating meat and butter daily. Precision Nutrition looks at whether there is an association between a person's metabolic status on these diets and their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Metabolic testing used with correct nutrition can help determine how a person's body will respond to a particular diet. Discover the types of gut bacteria that improve blood sugar control and implement diets that alter one's microbiome to support the growth and maintenance of specific gut bacteria this.

4. Apply correct nutrition to specific foods

An accurate diet examines how a person's DNA can relate to their response to a food.
An example is coffee, have you ever seen the reaction of a person expressing confusion after drinking one cup of coffee after another in a day, when you just need to drink 1 cup to feel good? Feeling restless or excited? The reason is because coffee contains phytochemicals with health benefits but not everyone can tolerate the side effects of caffeine. Research has discovered genes specifically related to coffee intake. These genes can determine how fast or slow the caffeine in coffee is metabolized. They have also been linked to anti-inflammatory effects and a reduced risk of certain chronic diseases. Precision Diet uses genetic data to determine whether an individual would benefit from drinking more or less coffee.
Other factors being studied include whether a high intake of saturated fat can cause a person to gain weight or if high salt intake increases the risk of high blood pressure. However, the findings from these studies were not replicated.

5. Challenges encountered

The field of precision nutrition is not ready to be replicated in clinical practice for a variety of reasons:
Lack of well-designed clinical trials with consistent results and the expensive technologies needed to can collect and study an individual's DNA, the gut microbiome, and the individual's response to food intake. Expensive treatments like these require high-quality evidence of their effectiveness and consistency before they can be recommended for use with or even in place of conventional interventions. for a particular disease. There can also be differences between clinical trial findings about individuals' metabolic responses to a particular diet depending on the type of test they use; therefore, this may cause variation in the individual nutritional recommendations provided. Primary care physicians, dietitians, and other health care providers need to be educated about correct nutrition, as it requires the joint effort of the entire health care team. Although private companies have begun to bring genetic and microbiome testing to market to help tailor diets based on an individual's response to specific nutrients or foods, but more research is needed on the effectiveness and accuracy of these tests. The ethical and legal aspects of correct nutrition practice may also need to be considered. Many people still hesitate to change, and at the same time do not have the economic conditions to be able to follow the experiments to the end.

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Reference source: hsph.harvard.edu