Metabolomics: Pioneering Personalized Nutrition
Variations in metabolism make it impossible to identify the best nutrition that suits all people. Metabolomics, in the case of the personalized nutrition era that could be food-derived biomarkers, can be used to assess individualized responses to the metabolism of foods in health and disease. This article dives into the emerging field of Metabolomics and how it applied to Nutrition and health.
What is Metabolomics
Metabolomics, the study of an individual's unique metabolic profile, is revolutionizing the field of personalized nutrition. It allows us to understand how our bodies process food and respond to different dietary choices on a deeply individual level.
The Metabolomics market overview
The global metabolomics market, valued at USD 2.58 billion in 2022, is projected to reach USD 5.33 billion by 2028 with a CAGR of 12.84%. North America, primarily the U.S. and Canada, dominates the market, accounting for over 40% in 2022. Key players include Agilent Technologies, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Thermo-Fisher Scientific, Danaher, and Perkin Elmer.
Increased research funding supports advancements in disease diagnostics, drug development, and biomarker discovery.
What does Metabolomics technology entail?
Metabolomics involves collecting biological samples from various sources, such as saliva, plasma, serum, urine, and tissues, and analyzing them using techniques like nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS). This enables researchers to identify and quantify molecules in small sample sizes.
Once data is acquired, it undergoes data processing, including baseline correction, compound extraction, and normalization, to prepare it for analysis. Specific databases aid in compound identification. The interpretation of metabolomics data involves three main approaches: information, discrimination, and prediction, revealing hidden pathways, biomarkers, and predictive models.
Metabolomics in Personalized healthcare
In healthcare, metabolomics data can predict disease risk in an individualized manner, tailor treatments based on unique genetic and biological markers, enhance patient safety by minimizing adverse medication reactions, and offer cost-effective therapies by reducing the need for trial-and-error treatments.
Despite its potential, clinical applications of metabolomics are not yet widespread. However, there are promising developments in fields like endocrinology, gastroenterology, cardiovascular diseases, rheumatology, and neurology.
Metabolomics is ushering in a new era of personalized nutrition and healthcare by providing deep insights into individual metabolic profiles.
Metabolomics in Personalized nutrition
Metabolomics is crucial for personalized nutrition as it helps identify food-derived biomarkers that assess individualized responses to food consumption. This includes short-term and long-term biomarkers, offering insights into dietary intake and its relationship with diseases like diabetes.
The application of metabolomics in the gut microbiome
The impact of diet on the gut microbiome is a hot topic in nutrition. Machine-learning algorithms are being used to predict how personalized diets affect gut bacteria and blood sugar levels, facilitating personalized dietary recommendations.
Metabolomics provides real-time data on an individual's metabolic response to dietary interventions. This allows for ongoing adjustments to dietary recommendations, ensuring they remain effective and aligned with changing metabolic states.
Metabotyping in Personalized nutrition
Metabotyping, a method categorizing individuals into metabolic groups, can offer an efficient and accurate approach to providing personalized nutrition advice, both at the group and individual levels, in clinical settings.
State of the science
The number of studies that have leveraged metabolomics to identify subgroups to dietary challenges or patterns have increased steadily over the years. For example, in a recent study by Hillsheimer et al , the researchers aimed to optimize the metabotype approach to provide more specific dietary advice regarding nutrient and food intake and dietary behaviors. To investigate that, they classified participants into three metabotypes:metabotype-1 (participants with the highest average HDL-cholesterol), metabotype-2 (participants with the lowest triacylglycerol and total cholesterol), and metabotype-3 (participants with the highest triacylglycerol and total cholesterol). For each participant, dietary advice was assigned using decision trees, both at the metabotype (group level) and personalized (individual level) approaches. The results concluded that there is a good agreement between the metabotype approach and the manual (individualized) approach, especially for metabotype-1 and metabotype-3.
Innovators in leveraging Metabolomics for Personalized nutrition
In the personalized nutrition sector, innovative companies such as:
Healthy-Longer- Healthy-Longer is a Swiss-based company that wants to democratize optimal brain health through nutrition and everyday foods. The company offers at-home tests to conduct neuro-biomarker analysis. Analyzed neuro-biomarkers include amino acids, neurotransmitters, and other metabolites.
Melico Sciences- s a UK-based company set up by experts to bring urine-based metabolomics to consumers, practitioners, and athletes. Their test can be ordered online and includes a comprehensive dietary intake form. They analyze urine samples for metabolites that look at the consumption of everyday foods such as wholegrains, caffeine, meat, fish, and legumes as well as ultra-processed food.
Lifespin - The German based company offers "digital snapshots of an individual's metabolism". The samples are analyzed with the method of NMR-scanning, and AI transforms data into results based on more than two hundred thousand individuals' metabolic profiling.
Zoe - The UK based company offers an at-home test to create an individual’s unique profile by understanding the gut microbiome composition, metabolic response to blood fat, and blood sugar testing using a challenge test and CGM data.
Current challenges in using Metabolomics in health
Challenges in metabolomics include:
- Complex data interpretation,
- The need for standardized sample handling protocols, and
- Limited awareness among healthcare professionals.
Addressing these challenges is essential to use metabolomics to improve patient care.
Opportunities for companies and brands
Brands also have opportunities in personalized nutrition products by harnessing metabolomics data to create highly customized offerings tailored to individuals' metabolic needs. Subscription-based models and clinical partnerships can further enhance the impact of personalized nutrition products.
Conclusion
In conclusion, metabolomics is ushering in a new era of personalized nutrition and healthcare by providing deep insights into individual metabolic profiles. It has the potential to revolutionize how we approach diet, disease prevention, and treatment, offering a more tailored and effective approach to improving health and well-being. All companies mentioned are listed on the Qina platform.
References
- Hillesheim, E., Ryan, M.F., Gibney, E. et al. Optimisation of a metabotype approach to deliver targeted dietary advice. Nutr Metab (Lond) 17, 82 (2020 | URL
- Healthy Longer: https://healthy-longer.com
- Zoe: https://joinzoe.com
- Lifespin: https://lifespin.health
- Melico: https://www.melicosciences.com/pages/our-science