Preventive Health: in the path of solving the nutrition/health equation

Traditionally, Nutrition Clinical studies have relied on the participants to tell them what they had eaten during the course of the study. Due to our human nature, this information was not always very accurate, or in some occasions downright false.

It is often the case that there is a difference between what the participant reports they have eaten and what they have really eaten. This mismatch can lead to mistakes in the interpretation of the results of nutritional studies and to the conclusions of the effects of nutrition on health.

Now, however, new methods and technology are available to analyze the different elements in the blood, providing more precise information of what the participant has really eaten. In this manner, the nutritional studies are currently more accurate than before in their results and conclusions.

Several research centers, such as the Chalmers University of Göteborg and other research centers around the world, are conducting a ground-breaking investigation about the different metabolites that are detectable in blood depending on what the person has eaten, i.e, they can determine the foods you have eaten by analyzing the elements present in your blood.

Establishing the relationship between the different food elements and the appearance of certain metabolites in the blood is one side of the equation that must be well known in order to establish a correlation between food/nutrition and health.

The other side of the equation is to understand the relationship between the presence of one or more certain active principles in blood and its effects on certain health conditions.

This side of the equation has been studied in more detail and commonly surveyed since it is the basic idea behind food supplements and health ingredients, i.e., to add the active principles that are missing in the blood because the body is not capable of producing sufficient amounts or because of poor nutritional habits, with the objective of improving a certain health condition.

During the last years, more and more research has been placed on health ingredients in order to identify and corroborate their effects. In this sense, this part of the equation is in a more advanced state of development, although it is still in its infant state.

In the future, much more research will be devoted to the development of both sides of the nutrition/health equation, and we must welcome the extraordinary work carried out by nutritional scientists such as Chalmers team.

For companies like Monteloeder, this knowledge will be used to develop more and more sophisticated and effective health ingredients.

Monteloeder´s business approach is to integrate this with the technology to measure the metabolites in the blood, machine learning techniques, persuasive design and mobile technology in order to promote changes in nutritional habits and develop more complex and targeted preventive health solutions.

A challenge that not many years ago was considered as science fiction but that has now become a reality.

Arturo Lizón

Chief Executive Officer

 

Related articles:

https://www.monteloeder.com/blog/2017/08/monteloeder-digital-nutraceutical-for-you-a-new-strategy-is-possible/

https://www.monteloeder.com/blog/2017/12/how-to-drive-a-digital-nutraceutical-personalization-strategy-that-manages-the-legal-frontier/

https://www.monteloeder.com/blog/2017/12/monteloeders-vision-of-the-future-of-nutraceuticalssupplements-part-ii/#more-415