The key to precision nutrition : Biomarkers of food intake

Nutrition's critical role in health necessitates precise dietary assessment tools for establishing health connections. A recent study in Nature Metabolism examines biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) as objective measures.

BFIs are metabolites indicating specific food consumption, crucial for nutritional interventions and validating food-disease associations. Unlike subjective tools like food frequency questionnaires (FFQs), BFIs offer objective assessments, reducing bias and improving compliance.

BFIs' reliability depends on their agreement with other biomarkers and factors like absorption and genetic variation. Intra-class correlation (ICC) assesses their consistency across populations.

BFIs were classified based on robustness and reliability. Level one includes validated urine BFIs for meats, fish, fruits, and grains; level two includes candidate BFIs awaiting validation.

Identification and validation involve discovery and prediction studies, addressing challenges like confounding factors in observational studies. Precision nutrition uses BFIs to tailor interventions, promising in managing obesity and cardiometabolic diseases.

Future research aims to refine BFIs across diverse diets, improve analytical methods, and validate predictive models to personalize dietary interventions for better health outcomes.