The aim of new technologies, such as the PREVENTOMICS interventional studies, is often to improve health outcomes. However, these technologies might also incur costs. By combining these costs and benefits in a cost-effectiveness analysis, we can see how much money will have to be spent to achieve a particular health outcome. The results of this…
The PREVENTOMICS project has developed a personalized nutritional and healthy lifestyle habits recommendation system based on users’ biomarkers, eating habits and physical and behavioural characteristics to generate tailor-made plans. This innovative platform would allow its integration with technological applications that need to apply precision nutrition to any type of treatment, disease or defined life situation,…
In recent years, the prevalence of overweight/obesity has been increasing in our societies. This worldwide and “modern” disease makes us more prone to suffer from other pathologies such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, depression, gastrointestinal disorders and chronic pain. More concretely, when the combination of obesity and pain appear, thus worsen the patient’s functional…
May personalised medicine rings you a bell; it is an “emerging practice of medicine that uses an individual’s genetic profile to guide decisions made regarding the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease” according to the National Human Genome Research Institute. As we are deeply entering into a new personalisation era in medical terms spurred by…
The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton conducted a study to identify whether tailored dietary advice is superior to usual dietetic advice in promoting a reduction in waist circumference, weight loss, body fat and favourable changes in metabolism in individuals with overweight and obesity. We interviewed Dr Ella Baker, research fellow, and Dr…
Worldwide obesity is a public health problem, and despite all the strategies implemented to revert the situation, no suitable solution has been found yet. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, in 2016, more than 1,900 million adults were overweight and over 650 million were obese. [1] Obesity is associated with decreased life expectancy…
Sustainability plays an increasingly important role in the buying habits of modern customers. As international active retailers, we reach millions of people of all ages, social classes, and educational backgrounds. ALDI aims to leverage this potential to make a positive contribution to sustainability and enable all customers to consume responsibly and with a clear conscience…
The market has a wide range of mobile applications related to food, nutrition, well-being and e-health. These new technologies aid prevention and, follow-up and health management and lifestyle. But one of the biggest challenges in preventing the generalised use of personalised nutrition is data collection. The data most difficult to obtain is daily intake of…
In recent years, the use of metabolomics (the “–omics” science that measures the set of small molecules present in biospecimens) has allowed the identification of new and robust biomarkers of food or nutrient intake, which give a more objective measure of exposure than self-reported methods1. Accurate measurement of food consumption is crucial to understanding the…
Changes in lifestyle, including improper nutrition and inadequate physical activity, have resulted in the epidemic of non – infectious diseases being a cause of several health problems, and even death. Functional food influences specific functions of the organism, providing (beyond basic nutrition) additional health benefits and remedies for some diseases, following the addition / concentration…
The Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, in Poland, has conducted a study with men and women with overweight and obesity to assess the effects of general nutrition advice versus personalised nutrition based on each individual’s physical and behavioural traits, lifestyle and preferences. Personalised nutrition is a new approach which aims to give individual’s…
Existing food nutrition security (FNS) data, knowledge, and tools (resources) for agri-food sciences are unFAIR. Rather than being readily found, accessible, interoperable, or reusable (FAIR), these resources are fragmented, lack critical mass, and access is unevenly distributed. FNS-Cloud is developing a first-generation cloud solution, federating existing and emerging datasets, and integrating tools and services to support re-use by user…
Eurecat Nutrition & Health Technological Unit has assessed the soundness of the personalised nutrition advice generated by PREVENTOMICS recommender system and a behavioural change programme to improve the dietary habits of over 150 participants with no previous pathologies. The study evaluated participants’ anthropometric measurements, blood pressure and changes in the metabolic profile before and after a 21-week intervention…
Relations between diet and nutrigenomic is becoming more and important in nutrition practice. “The discovery of these interactions (gene-nutrient) will aid the prescription of customised diets according to each individual’s genotype (1)”. Genetics-based personalised nutrition allows individuals to follow a diet shaped according his/her genes and his/her body responds to food and this approach can…
NUTRISHIELD is one of the PREVENTOMICS’s sister projects. The two projects share the same big goal to develop a highly effective and easy to use personalised nutrition platform and tools, following, however, a different strategy and approach. NUTRISHIELD is an innovative solution, providing personalised nutrition advice and support that will assist people in achieving their optimal…
The Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS) at the University of Copenhagen has conducted a randomised controlled interventional study to investigate the potential advantages of delivering personalised nutrition interventions (meals and dietary advice) to men and women with excess body weight. We interviewed Kristina Pigsborg and Mona Aldubayan, PhD students, who are managing the Danish PREVENTOMICS study to…
For an earlier PREVENTOMICS blog post, project partner OCU conducted a large survey to identify which behaviour changes end users perceive to be the easiest and the most difficult. According to the people surveyed, the lifestyle habits easiest to change were the following: Eating better (e.g.: more fruit and vegetables, less processed products, etc.): 52%. Doing more…
Obesity is a multifactorial syndrome associated with metabolic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, altered blood lipids and cardiovascular diseases. Genetic and environmental factors, as well as their interactions are main drivers of obesity, which make both, treatment and prevention difficult. In fact, the contribution of genetics to obesity and adiposity traits has been attributed…
Combating the obesity epidemic is one of the greatest challenges of modern times. Although diets for weight loss have been around for more than 2,500 years, they have obviously not been particularly successful, as rates of overweight and obesity have continued to increase across the world over the past several decades. According to the World Health…
Obesity and gut microbiota Obesity is a major concern in modern societies, especially in developed countries, since it’s prevalence has tripled worldwide since 1975 [1]. The World Health Organization reports that 39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese [2]. Obesity is usually defined as excess of…
Selection, balance, variety, prevention… It is well known that nutrition is one of the pillars of health. “We are what we eat” as the saying goes, but although there is more and more information on how to eat, overweight, a penchant for junk food, excesses and illnesses caused by poor nutrition are present in many…
Combating the obesity epidemic is one of the greatest challenges of modern times. Although diets for weight loss have been around for more than 2,500 years, they have obviously not been particularly successful, as rates of overweight and obesity have continued to increase across the world over the past several decades. According to the World Health Organization (2016), Europe…
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide and, especially when accompanied by group of disorders known as metabolic syndrome, is the common factor of reduced lifespan. Diagnosis of metabolic syndrome allows the identification of people at two-fold increased risk of cardiovascular disease and five-fold increased risk of type 2 diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation,…
Because eating well is a bet on health In recent decades, developed societies have experienced a food overabundance and this is reflected in the increase in life expectancy. At the same time health problems, such as obesity, have appeared, which highlight the lack of balance between nutrition and health. World Health Organization data clearly show…
There exist many approaches which try to recommend healthy diets. Most of them, however, are mainly observational, use food diaries, and have led to erroneous recommendations by assuming that the same diet is right for all people. But new tools, findings and emerging information technologies have changed the landscape for nutritional science and underscored the need to better individualise…
Is personalised nutrition an effective tool for preventing diet related diseases considering potentially higher costs? Nowadays, many people suffer from the well-known global health problem called obesity. Obesity is often caused by poor dietary patterns, which might lead to different diet related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart diseases [1] [2]. Thus, prevention of…
The new year is quickly approaching and people all around the world will soon start thinking of their new year resolutions. Many of us will come up with meaningful and healthy changes to make in 2020. Yet most of us will struggle to stick with our plans to live healthily, whether it concerns dieting, being…
Obesity represents the most common metabolic disorder in industrialised countries, but the excess of weight is a global burden[1]. This disorder is reaching alarming proportions among adults, as well as young people. The rising incidence of obesity implies a great concern and commitment for the healthcare system, as there is a strong association between obesity and…
Obesity, a health global issue Obesity has been defined as the global pandemic of the 21st century, since it is estimated that more than a third of the world’s population is overweight or obese1. Characterised by the excessive accumulation of fat, obesity is related to an increased risk of suffering from other metabolic disorders, such as insulin…
Eating habits and consumption trends are in a continuous process of transformation. In recent years, the food industry, aware of resource scarcity, is looking for nutritional alternatives, including functional foods, that promote optimal health and help reduce the risk of disease. However, it’s important to know which will be the food of the future and…
A nutritionally well-balanced diet is essential for the metabolic needs of the body to function throughout the lifespan. Consistent with this, the absence of a balanced diet is a well-recognised contributor to various health problems, including malnutrition, heart disease, stroke, cancer and type 2 diabetes, amongst others 1-3. Each person reacts differently to the same nutritional…
Nutrition and dietary habits are among the most relevant factors affecting human health. This fact makes the capacity to evaluate in great detail a person’s dietary intake paramount to become able to understand the association between diet and health. The assessment of dietary intake currently relies on traditional methods, such as food frequency questionnaires, dietary…
In the last century, we have achieved the maximum lifespan that the human being has ever experienced. Advances in hygiene, medicine and technology underlie this record. But this increase in lifespan does not come for free, since we are now familiar with some diseases associated to ageing that centuries ago were almost unknown, such as…
The PREVENTOMICS European project will develop, from this November and for 3 years, personalized plans for nutrition and lifestyle habits to improve the health of people, based on individual traits such as physical and behavioural traits, lifestyle, genotype, preferences and physical condition. The personal health plans, which will consider consumers’ needs and requirements, will reach…
