NIH grants US$170M for grand-scale precision nutrition research, eying microbiome and machine learning

21 Jan 2022 --- The US National Institutes for Health (NIH) is slated to award US$170 million in funding over the next five years for precision nutrition studies. The research aims to develop algorithms that can predict individual responses to food and dietary routines.

The initiative “Nutrition for Precision Health” (NPH) is powered by the All of Us Research Program, and will recruit 10,000 participants to inform more personalized nutrition recommendations.

“We know that nutrition, just like medicine, isn’t one-size-fits-all. NPH will take into account an individual’s genetics, gut microbes and other lifestyle, biological, environmental, or social factors to help each individual develop eating recommendations that improve overall health,” underscores Holly Nicastro, NPH coordinator. 

Pending availability of funds, the US$170 million will be distributed across 14 awards which entail six clinical centers, a dietary assessment center, a metabolomics and clinical assays center, a microbiome and metagenomics center, a multimodal data modeling and bioinformatics center, a research coordinating center and additional support to existing NPH infrastructure.Personalized nutrition may shape the future of industry. 

Microbiome to answer age-old question?
From the total funds, US$14.5 million will go toward launching a new microbiome and metagenomics center at UC San Diego. The center will analyze the microbiomes, communities of microbes and their genetic material, found in the stool samples of nutrition study participants.

“Bringing this expertise and technology to bear on the incredibly challenging problem of nutrition and health will enable a whole new level of precision in answering the age-old question of ‘what should I eat today?’” says Rob Knight, who will be one of the scientists leading the center.

“We are just starting to understand how the microbiome can answer this with a surprising level of individual detail, not just broad-stroke generalizations for the whole population.” 

NPH will collect new microbiome and metagenomics data, along with other potentially predictive factors and combine it with existing data in the NPH database to develop a more complete picture of how individuals respond to different foods or dietary routines. 

The data will be made widely available, providing greater opportunities for researchers to make discoveries that could improve health and prevent or treat diseases and conditions affected by nutrition. 

As research into the microbiome continues, deep tech business Eagle Genomics UK-based Quadram announced a partnership to investigate the microbiome and its role in diet and disease. 

Algorithms for diet
One of NPH’s studies is set to receive US$8.6 million to attempt to use machine learning to predict how an individual responds to a given diet. 

“The study will generate a massive dataset, a wealth of biospecimens and the algorithms that will lead to personalized dietary prescriptions that can promote health, prevent heart attacks or strokes, and importantly, address health disparities,” says John Kirwan, Pennington Biomedical executive director.

“What we need is precision, the ability to prescribe diets that account for the factors unique to each person, such as their genetics, metabolism, physiology, behavior, even the microorganisms in their body,” adds Leanne Redman, associate executive director for clinical science at Pennington Biomedical Research Center.The microbiome has become a focus point of research for its link to gut, immune and mental health. 

Personalization here to stay?
Apart from following 10,000 participants while they eat their usual diets, one of the studies will also gather data on 1,500 participants who will follow one of three prescription diets while living at home. A final group of 500 participants will follow the same diets during stays at clinical sites.

Researchers will measure blood sugar levels and biomarkers of cardiometabolic health, such as insulin resistance, blood pressure and blood lipids. Researchers will also collect samples of blood, urine, saliva, hair and stool to assess the impact of people’s diets. Wearables will be used to track participants’ physical activity and sleep.

The use of wearables is gaining ground as companies are attempting to tap into increasing personalization trends. Abbott is developing a new category of consumer biowearables dubbed Lingo, slated to launch across Europe later this year, designed to measure biomarkers like glucose, ketones and lactate. 

Currently, researchers at the University of Copenhagen are developing a  personalized dietary profilethat can tell individuals what is good and bad for them to eat, depending on their health status. The growing volume of R&D in personalization reflects a previous prediction by the NIH that personalized nutrition will become a mainstay in medical care by 2030

By Andria Kades