The role of metabolomics in personalized nutrition using food bioacties

In the modern era of nutrition, metabolomics has revealed high potential in a wide range of applications. One of the most popular usages has been focused on the detection of novel bioactive compounds in food. At the same time, metabolomics has also proven to be a valuable tool for the discovery of new biomark ers of food intake to overcome the limitations of traditional methods of dietary assessment. This has led to a better understanding of how dietary constituents’ impact health and modulate metabolic pathways. Such studies revealed that different subjects have their own metabolic profile (also known as metabolic phenotypes or metabotypes). Different metabolic phenotypes, in turn, have been associated to the differ ent responses of individuals to diet highlighting the need to study more in depth the main determinants of inter-individual variation in response to food consumption. This stratification of individuals in metabotypes could be used for delivering customized nutritional recommendations and/or tailored dietary interventions at individual level, which can then be used to achieve personalized nutrition. The metabotype of an individ ual is also affected by the persons’ microbiota and their own metabolites. The microorganisms present in the gut are often capable of metabolizing some of the dietary components that humans are unable to pro cess, transforming them into potential bioactive compounds. However, the widely described differences in the gut microbiome composition between subjects add an additional challenge in the effective translation of scientific knowledge in clinical practice in the era of precision medicine. In this talk, I will discuss existing applications of different metabolomics approaches in the field of personalized nutrition towards a more objective dietary assessment using food intake biomarkers, and in the stratification of individuals accord ing to their metabolic phenotypes, while considering the major challenges that remain to be addressed to move forward in the discipline of personalized nutrition.