This will then lead to what Dr. Jorg Hager, an expert in genetics and nutrigenomics at the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, calls the “virtuous circle of personalized nutrition.”
He was speaking at our Asia Growth Summit on the theme “Providing the right food for diverse consumer needs and benefits: precision nutrition from a product perspective”.
Nestlé is one of the pioneers of personalized nutrition, having launched solutions such as MyMenu IQ aimed at improving the nutritional quality of meals by suggesting different food combinations.
Its effects on nutritional management were studied in a clinical trial involving individuals suffering from Crohn’s disease – a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The company’s Pure Genomics subsidiary also uses personalized genetic tools to provide lifestyle and nutrition recommendations.
However, a common pitfall in the industry is that personalized nutritional solutions focus more on products, with little consideration of the entire ecosystem.
For example, product manufacturers typically don’t think through steps involving measuring health data, Dr. Hager said.
“If we were to develop personalized or precision nutrition, we don’t have to think just about the product, we have to think about the whole ecosystem, that’s probably the most important take-home message,” he said.
Personalized or precision nutrition will revolve around four stages.
The first step is to use wearable devices or a mobile app to track and measure health data.
The second is to analyze the collected data, which could be done through artificial intelligence (AI), and then display the data in a meaningful way to users.
The third is to provide product, diet and lifestyle recommendations based on health data analysis.
The fourth is to measure the effects and repeat steps one through three. This is where adjustments would be made to the previous set of product, diet and lifestyle recommendations.
He said it’s important for personalized nutrition companies to understand that “It all works together, and you can’t just choose one and not the other.”
“Basically, it’s what we call a virtuous cycle of precision nutrition, which is certain types of measurements, which can take the form of questionnaires, and then do something with it, analyze it, and then report it back to consumers. in the form of clear recommendations, » he said.
As new technologies emerge, Dr. Hager believes more devices will be developed to help consumers measure their health metrics at their convenience.
Why a personalized diet?
Personalized nutrition is important because a one-size-fits-all approach has its limitations, as nutrient supplementation alone does not necessarily help an individual achieve their nutritional goals.
Following recommended dietary allowances (RDA), for example, does not necessarily meet nutritional needs.
Dr Hager cited the example of the United States, where a survey showed a weak correlation between daily intake and the amount of vitamin B12 detected in the body.
“Basically there is a very weak correlation between the two. More importantly, you also see that a fraction of people whose intake is above the RDA never achieve sufficient vitamin B12 intake.
“There are several reasons for this, some of these reasons are biological, and others are parameters that we can measure, and that’s where personalized nutrition comes in,”he said.
Furthermore, consuming the same food could induce very different glycemic responses depending on individuals, as shown in a study by Zeevi et al. Published in Cell in 2015.
In contrast, a personalized diet was found to be superior to the Mediterranean diet for the management of prediabetes, based on a study by Ben-Yacov et al. published in the journal Diabetic treatments in 2021.
Even regulatory authorities such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have recognized the limitations of RDA, Dr Hager said.
“They have made it very clear that these measures such as the RDA and the EAR (Estimated Average Requirement) are not individual goals for your diet… We should not assume that they are enough to keep you healthy,”he said.
Find the sweet spot
Additionally, simply taking supplements without assessing the body’s condition can do more harm than good.
This is shown in the case of an Australian study which evaluated the impact of DHA supplementation on different birth outcomes.
One finding was that women who already had high levels of DHA did not benefit from supplementation. The study was conducted by Middleton P. and otherswith results published in 2018 in Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews.
“Not only did they not benefit from the supplementation, but it also increased the risk of certain consequences, particularly for premature births.
“What we saw was that there’s actually a sweet spot for supplementation or enrichment, and so, it’s not that the more the better,” said Dr. Hager, adding that this is an area where precision nutrition could play a role.
