As nutrigenetic and nutrigenomic understanding is increasing should resources still be spent on developing population-wide recommendations for longevity, prevention of chronic disease and treatment of chronic disease?
From pediatrics side, this is a very relevant question, as this vulnerable age group needs the balanced nutrition to reach the optimum growth.
Dear Connie, thank you for this wonderful question.
In my opinion, I would say Personalised nutrition uses information on individual characteristics to develop targeted nutritional advice, products, or services to assist people to achieve a lasting dietary change in behaviour that is beneficial for health. Most of the available evidence in support of personalised nutrition has come from observational studies with risk factors as outcomes, rather than from randomised controlled trials using clinical end points.
The overall consensus is that much research and regulation is required before personalised nutrition can deliver the expected benefits. Hence population recommendation should not be neglected.
In short, yes. Vaguely, there has to be a baseline set of recommendations; a starting point if you like. This is to be tailored downstream, on a personalised fashion, to meet individual needs that derive from interindividual genetic variations. By default, treating an individual entails tailoring general recommendations to meet their needs, and for example consider an acute scenario of an ICU patient receiving TPN. Bearing in mind that the practice of registered practitioners is not only evidence-based, but also governed by professional codes of conduct and national recommendations (e.g. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK), I believe that the real question is how much value does nutrigenomic and nutrigenetic information really add in everyday practice.
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