“ At the end, it’s about bringing the science closer to commercialization so it can be used by people, otherwise it has no impact. ”
The world is currently facing a nutritional transition, driven by the global adoption of the Western diet. Health issues such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome are now collectively responsible for almost 70% of all deaths worldwide.
A multi-national team of researchers is working to address this issue through the adoption of personalised nutrition. The Stance4Health project involves the development of smart mobile technologies as well as food databases and personalised foods and food supplements, which can provide consumers with tailored recommendations while encouraging citizen engagement for healthy and sustainable lifestyle.
At the center of this initiative is an invisible but incredibly important factor that influences our eating habits and overall health: gut bacteria. These are trillions of microbes that live in the human gut in a rather symbiotic way. An emerging body of research suggests that our food cravings may be significantly shaped by the gut bacteria and that they are linked to multiple health issues such as diabetes, obesity, depression, and colon cancer.
The gut microbiota differs from individual to individual, which means that the “ideal plate” looks different for each of us. This can be a major challenge for people trying to meet their nutritional needs and also for healthcare practitioners.
“Personalized nutrition means considering the nutritional needs of an individual, their gut microbiota, and also the way food is being processed and cooked because this has a strong impact on nutrients, and the gut microbiota reacts in a different way,” – says Dr. José Ángel Rufián-Henares, professor at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Granada in Spain.
He led the Stance4Health team in an effort to rethink the way people think about nutrition using a science-based approach. The team developed a nutritional kit around a mobile app that can indicate what kind of foods each individual should eat for the health of their gut microbiota. The kit includes a metabolic test which will provide data on the current status of the gut microbiota, and that can detect around 150 of metabolic disorders. The recommendations made by the app will take into account this information but also additional criteria like food preferences and dietary restrictions due to allergies, religion, or location.
The app can modify the menu to adapt it based on the previous meals. For example, if you improvise a meal and eat a sandwich because you’re in a hurry, the app will recalculate your nutritional needs and provide the right options for your next meals for the rest of the week. This way, occasional “mistakes” are mitigated to compensate over the following days.
The service also provides a wide range of specific food supplements based on tannins that can complement the diets for people with celiac disease or food allergies.
Source: stance4health.com
But the app developed by the STANCE4HEALTH team is just the tip of the iceberg. One of the main objectives was the development of food databases linked to the mobile app. Information on raw/cooked foods as well as the composition of typical dishes of specific countries, ready to eat foods, and products commercialized by retailers had be gathered and structured to build the backbone of the app. Additionally, an image database of foods, portion sizes, and barcodes of foods sold in supermarkets had to be set up.
Depending on the gut microbiota composition, people have different needs but also multiple food options with different impact on the environment.
“This is something we wanted to consider when developing the app: when people would get a personalized diet with similar nutritional properties, they would also learn about the environmental impact of each food and they would be able to take an informed decision when choosing their foods. It would be healthier for you but also for the ecosystem, which is a living organism itself,” José added.
According to a European Environment Agency report, reducing the environmental impacts of the food system requires more efficient and sustainable use of natural resources and changes in people’s food choices and diets, among others.
Source: 2022 Global Nutrition Report, globalnutrition.org
Stance4Health is an Innovation Action funded by Horizon 2020, which targets projects expected to have an outcome with high technology readiness, so closer to the commercialization stage.
For researchers or experts focusing on the development process, it is not always easy to undertake the research exploitation and business development on top of their work. Support services such as those provided by Horizon Results Booster can help innovators get a clearer understanding of what and how to use research results.
“In the first module we had an overview of the type of results that could reach the market and received training on how to approach this step considering all the partners involved in the project. Then, we selected the results we want to focus on and develop further,” José explains.
The team benefited from the Portfolio Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy, Business Plan Development, and the Go-To-Market Service.
It helps that one of the key exploitable results, the mobile app, has many modules and functionalities and can be easily adapted to the market needs. There can be services for the general public but also services dedicated to hospitals for targeting specific categories, for example cancer or diabetic patients. In this case, the service would assist doctors in providing personalized diets considering the pathology of their patients.
“It's the first service in the world providing personalized nutrition recommendations based on gut microbiota. It is quite important from the technological point of view to be the always the first. The best part is that the service is modular, therefore flexible, and backed by scientifical data. There is a broad range of capabilities that we could cover, and we have to select the specific markets to focus on,” José explains. “At the end, it’s about bringing the science closer to commercialization so it can be used by people, otherwise it has no impact.”
Personalized nutrition is an emerging area of research. Advances in technologies that enable testing and developments in our understanding of factors affecting our individual digestive and metabolic profile have given rise to novel methods for personalizing our diet.
Nevertheless, the burden of disease associated with poor nutrition continues to grow in the European Region. Unhealthy diets, overweight and obesity contribute to a large proportion of noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and cancers, which together are the main cause of death.
National surveys in most countries indicate excessive consumption of energy, saturated fat, trans fats, sugar and salt, as well as low consumption of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Reports also show increasing numbers of people with obesity. All of these not only shorten life expectancy, but also harm the quality of life. Simultaneously, in some countries and among some vulnerable groups, undernutrition remains a concern.
Source: 2022 Global Nutrition Report, globalnutrition.org
Learn more: www.stance4health.com
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