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Towards nutrition with precision: unlocking biomarkers as dietary assessment tools

Nature Metabolism volume 6, pages 1438–1453 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Precision nutrition requires precise tools to monitor dietary habits. Yet current dietary assessment instruments are subjective, limiting our understanding of the causal relationships between diet and health. Biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) hold promise to increase the objectivity and accuracy of dietary assessment, enabling adjustment for compliance and misreporting. Here, we update current concepts and provide a comprehensive overview of BFIs measured in urine and blood. We rank BFIs based on a four-level utility scale to guide selection and identify combinations of BFIs that specifically reflect complex food intakes, making them applicable as dietary instruments. We discuss the main challenges in biomarker development and illustrate key solutions for the application of BFIs in human studies, highlighting different strategies for selecting and combining BFIs to support specific study designs. Finally, we present a roadmap for BFI development and implementation to leverage current knowledge and enable precision in nutrition research.

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Fig. 1: Factors affecting the detection of a BFI in a blood or urine sample.
Fig. 2: Examples of approaches for selecting and combining BFIs based on the intended dietary assessment.
Fig. 3: Roadmap for the implementation of BFIs for objective dietary assessment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Semper Ardens grant from the Carlsberg Foundation (CF15-0574) to L.O.D., a grant from Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF19OC0056246: PRIMA - towards Personalized dietary Recommendations based on the Interaction between diet, Microbiome and Abiotic conditions in the gut) to L.O.D. and H.M.R. and an International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programme 2219 from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye - TÜBİTAK - to T.B.-T.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Cătălina Cuparencu, Tuğçe Bulmuş-Tüccar, Jan Stanstrup, Giorgia La Barbera, Henrik M. Roager & Lars O. Dragsted

  2. Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Yüksek İhtisas University, Ankara, Turkey

    Tuğçe Bulmuş-Tüccar

Authors
  1. Cătălina Cuparencu
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  2. Tuğçe Bulmuş-Tüccar
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  3. Jan Stanstrup
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  5. Henrik M. Roager
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  6. Lars O. Dragsted
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Contributions

C.C., conceptualization; data curation, writing original draft, overall editing, primary responsibility for the final content; figures; Supplementary Information; supervision; project management; T.B.-T., literature search; data curation; references; Supplementary Information; figures; J.S., writing original draft; kinetics simulations figures; G.L.B., writing original draft, overall editing; figures; H.M.R., conceptualization; writing original draft; figures; L.O.D., conceptualization, data curation, writing original draft, overall editing, primary responsibility for the final content; figures, Supplementary Information; supervision. All authors contributed substantially to discussions around article content, and finally reviewed, revised and accepted the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Cătălina Cuparencu.

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Nature Metabolism thanks Rikard Landberg, Nicola Guess and Gary Frost for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Ashley Castellanos-Jankiewicz, in collaboration with the Nature Metabolism team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

Overview of literature search.

Supplementary Table 1

Evidence for ranking BFIs measured in urine and blood according to the utility levels defined in Fig. 1, together with estimated time windows for sampling for each reported biomarker.

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Cuparencu, C., Bulmuş-Tüccar, T., Stanstrup, J. et al. Towards nutrition with precision: unlocking biomarkers as dietary assessment tools. Nat Metab 6, 1438–1453 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-024-01067-y

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