Nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics: A brief review with future prospects

Individual’s genetic makeup best describes the properties regarding its growth and development. It is stored and passed on to generations and is in dynamic equilibrium with the environmental and other non-living factors. The most predominant environmental stimuli are diet/nutrition. Diet/nutrition interacts and modulates varying underlying molecular mechanisms central to various physiological functions basically at three different levels: genome, proteome, and metabolome. Advances in genomic studies are paving the way to the development of scientific insights into nutritional sciences. Nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics are closely associated but two different areas of nutritional research. Both the fields involved the study of the implication between nutrition, metabolism, and genetic mechanism. The primary goal is to pinpoint nutrient-dependent health characteristics and nutrition dependent diseases. Another important area connected to these sciences concerns food composition and performance of quality assessment by studying proteomics and metabolic pathways. Nutrigenomics explains how the nutrients influences or effects the expression of the, while the response of different gene variants to nutrients or different dietary components is called Nutrigenetics. A personalized based diet can help us to know the right nutrient to take or avoid those who may potentially harm overall health. The goals are intended to alter or decrease the impact of hostile dietary changes that have occurred in since past in the developed world and more recently in the developing countries.

Identification of Block-Structured Covariance Matrix on an Example of Metabolomic Data

Modern investigation techniques (e.g., metabolomic, proteomic, lipidomic, genomic, transcriptomic, phenotypic), allow to collect high-dimensional data, where the number of observations is smaller than the number of features. In such cases, for statistical analyzing, standard methods cannot be applied or lead to ill-conditioned estimators of the covariance matrix. To analyze the data, we need an estimator of the covariance matrix with good properties (e.g., positive definiteness), and therefore covariance matrix identification is crucial. The paper presents an approach to determine the block-structured estimator of the covariance matrix based on an example of metabolomic data on the drought resistance of barley. This method can be used in many fields of science, e.g., in agriculture, medicine, food and nutritional sciences, toxicology, functional genomics and nutrigenomics.

Is Energy Expenditure or Physical Activity Considered When Energy Intake Is Measured? A Scoping Review 1975–2015

The health-transitions humans have delivered during the 20th Century associated with the nutrition is that from undernutrition to obesity, which perseveres in the current years of the 21st Century. Energy intake (EI) is a contributing factor and therefore a fascination in nutritional sciences. However, energy expenditure (EE) has not been usually considered as a conjoint factor. Thus, this study aimed to review if studies on adults consider data on dietary intake, specifically EI, and included data on EE and physical activity (PA). A search of MEDLINE from 1975 to December 2015 was managed. Our scoping review consisted of keywords related to EI, dietary allowances, and nutritional requirements. From 2229 acknowledged articles, 698 articles were finally taken fulfilling inclusion and quality criteria. A total of 2,081,824 adults (53.7% females) were involved, and most studies had been conducted in EEUU (241), Canada (42), Australia (30), Japan (32), and Brazil (14). In Europe, apart from UK (64), the Netherlands (31) and France (26) led the classification, followed by Sweden (18), Denmark (17), and France (26). Mediterranean countries are represented with 27 studies. A total of 76.4% did not include EE and 93.1% did not include PA. Only 23.6% of the studies contained both EI and EE. A large methodological diversity was perceived, with more than 14 different methods regarding EI, and more than 10 for EE. PA was only analyzed in scarce articles, and scarcely considered for interpretation of data and conclusions. Moreover, PA was often measured by subjective questionnaires. Dietary surveys show a large diversity regarding methodology, which makes comparability of studies difficult. EE and PA are missing in around 80% of studies or are not included in the interpretation of results. Conclusions regarding EI or diet adequacy in adults should not be taken without analyzing EE and PA.

Sensing Lab: Food Science and Technology Division, Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences – University of Milan

This paper keeps on the series of articles aimed at presenting to the readers of NIR News the research groups active in the field of NIR spectroscopy in Italy. In detail, the activities of the Sensing Lab research group of the Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (University of Milan) are described.

CFDR Research Showcase: Early Bird Abstracts

Given the pandemic challenges we experienced over the last year, the 2021 Dietitians of Canada (DC) National Conference from May–June brought our dietetic community together from all across Canada and the world. This year the Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research (CFDR) showcased another successful event with novel, relevant, timely research projects via the OnAIR Virtual Event Portal. Twenty-four research abstracts were submitted and reviewed by the Early Bird Abstract Review Committee. It was exciting to have research from different nutrition and dietetic practice areas represented. Thanks for all of the abstract submissions! Eight Early Bird abstracts were presented as Lightning Rounds during the virtual DC National Conference and were very well-received. The remaining 16 abstracts were displayed as posters for the duration of the conference with a live 7-min presentation opportunity from the poster gallery on May 19, 2021. All of the Early Bird abstracts are published in this issue of the Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research and are also featured on the CFDR website. These abstracts represent a wide variety of practice-based nutrition research projects in Canada. The Early Bird abstract research event would not have been possible without the commitment and dedication of many supportive individuals. On behalf of DC and CFDR, we extend a special thank you to members of our abstract review committee: Susan Campisi (University of Toronto); Pauline Darling (University of Ottawa); Andrea Glenn (St. Francis Xavier University); Mahsa Jessri (University of British Columbia); Grace Lee (University Health Network), Jessica Lieffers (University of Saskatchewan); Shelley Vanderhout (University of Toronto). A sincere thank you to all of the moderators, the DC Conference team and Izabella Bachmanek for their support with the Lightning Round presentations over the course of the DC virtual conference. Please consider submitting an abstract next year for the CFDR Research Showcase at the 2022 DC National Conference in Saskatoon, SK. Wishing all of you a wonderful Fall! Warm regards, Christina Lengyel PhD RD Chair, 2021 Early Bird Committee Professor Director of the Dietetics Program Food and Human Nutritional Sciences University of Manitoba Janis Randall Simpson PhD RD FDC FCNS Executive Director, CFDR Professor Emerita University of Guelph

Droplet Microfluidics for Food and Nutrition Applications

Droplet microfluidics revolutionizes the way experiments and analyses are conducted in many fields of science, based on decades of basic research. Applied sciences are also impacted, opening new perspectives on how we look at complex matter. In particular, food and nutritional sciences still have many research questions unsolved, and conventional laboratory methods are not always suitable to answer them. In this review, we present how microfluidics have been used in these fields to produce and investigate various droplet-based systems, namely simple and double emulsions, microgels, microparticles, and microcapsules with food-grade compositions. We show that droplet microfluidic devices enable unprecedented control over their production and properties, and can be integrated in lab-on-chip platforms for in situ and time-resolved analyses. This approach is illustrated for on-chip measurements of droplet interfacial properties, droplet–droplet coalescence, phase behavior of biopolymer mixtures, and reaction kinetics related to food digestion and nutrient absorption. As a perspective, we present promising developments in the adjacent fields of biochemistry and microbiology, as well as advanced microfluidics–analytical instrument coupling, all of which could be applied to solve research questions at the interface of food and nutritional sciences.

Nutritional Psychiatry: How Diet Affects Brain through Gut Microbiota

Nutritional sciences have been recognized as being of paramount importance for the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Among others, mental health disorders have been hypothesized to be influenced by dietary risk through a variety of molecular mechanisms. The improvements in the technology and implementation of-omics sciences in terms of nutrition have created the possibility of studying the relation between diet, gut microbiota and mental health. The gut–brain–axis represents the core rationale setting the stage for a relatively new discipline of study defined as “nutritional psychiatry”. Research on this matter will help to better understand the relation between food and mood, sleep quality, cognition, and mental health in general.

Nutrition and Rheumatoid Arthritis in the ‘Omics’ Era

Modern high-throughput ‘omics’ science tools (including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiomics) are currently being applied to nutritional sciences to unravel the fundamental processes of health effects ascribed to particular nutrients in humans and to contribute to more precise nutritional advice. Diet and food components are key environmental factors that interact with the genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome and the microbiota, and this life-long interplay defines health and diseases state of the individual. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease featured by a systemic immune-inflammatory response, in genetically susceptible individuals exposed to environmental triggers, including diet. In recent years increasing evidences suggested that nutritional factors and gut microbiome have a central role in RA risk and progression. The aim of this review is to summarize the main and most recent applications of ‘omics’ technologies in human nutrition and in RA research, examining the possible influences of some nutrients and nutritional patterns on RA pathogenesis, following a nutrigenomics approach. The opportunities and challenges of novel ‘omics technologies’ in the exploration of new avenues in RA and nutritional research to prevent and manage RA will be also discussed.