Spain backs industry partnership on personalized nutrition for brain health

30 Mar 2021 --- Natac Biotech is teaming up with Precision For Health (P4H) and public research institute IMDEA Food on a new project called Health4Brain. Set to last three years, the Spanish partnership will investigate how personalized nutrition can impact cognitive function – which is especially important for the elderly.

P4H will create personalized recommendations for nutrition products based on people’s genetic profiles, taking the cognitive pattern-nutrition interaction into account.

These products will then be developed by Natac. Finally, IMDEA Food will carry out nutrigenetic studies on the products, both in vitro to determine their mechanism of action and in humans to validate their efficacy.

Health4Brain is funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation. Overall, the project will have a budget of €542,107.02 (US$636,210), of which €194,419.50 (US$228,168) corresponds to a subsidy, and €286,365.88 (US$336,074) is assistance in the form of loans for businesses.

Helping the elderly
Overall, the Health4Brain project aims to make the most of “omic” technologies and knowledge in applying precision nutrition to improve the efficacy of nutritional strategies and products for optimizing cognitive capacity.

Cognitive function includes multiple mental abilities related to thinking, language, memory, learning, and even decision-making and problem-solving. While this is important throughout all stages of life, it is also a crucial indicator of elderly adults’ ability to maintain independence.

IMDEA notes that cognitive impairment is estimated to impact 18.5 percent of Spain’s over-65 population. Women have significantly higher prevalence rates than men. 

Therefore, maintaining cognitive function can be a key way to improve the quality of life for the elderly population, as well as slashing associated health care costs. 

These generational differences are part of the reason why US researchers are calling for diets for mental health to be tailored by age and sex. Health4Brain is part of the Collaboration Challenges 2019 program, run by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation.

The role of personalization
It remains to be determined precisely what the causes and mechanisms involved in cognitive decline are. However, it seems that genetics and diet affect brain development and function in a significant way, according to IMDEA. 

For example, it notes that an inadequate diet can have a direct impact on cognitive function since the increase in processed food – marked by a lack of antioxidants and vitamins – or an unbalanced diet limits the lack of certain nutrients, vitamins and other healthy bioactive compounds. 

Furthermore, research in recent years has been increasingly suggesteding that certain people may be more in need of certain nutrients, as determined by their genetics. 

Last week, two investigations examined how genetic makeup determines the effectiveness of dietary supplementation with ingredients such as iron and omega 3. 

Additionally, the US National Institutes of Health predicts that precision nutrition will become a mainstay in medical care by 2030. 

Edited by Katherine Durrell