Metabolomics Meets Nutritional Epidemiology: Harnessing the Potential in Metabolomics Data

Abstract

Traditionally, nutritional epidemiology is the study of the relationship between diet and health and disease in humans at the population level. Commonly, the exposure of interest is food intake. In recent years, nutritional epidemiology has moved from a "black box" approach to a systems approach where genomics, metabolomics and proteomics are providing novel insights into the interplay between diet and health. In this context, metabolomics is emerging as a key tool in nutritional epidemiology. The present review explores the use of metabolomics in nutritional epidemiology. In particular, it examines the role that food-intake biomarkers play in addressing the limitations of self-reported dietary intake data and the potential of using metabolite measurements in assessing the impact of diet on metabolic pathways and physiological processes. However, for full realisation of the potential of metabolomics in nutritional epidemiology, key challenges such as robust biomarker validation and novel methods for new metabolite identification need to be addressed. The synergy between traditional epidemiologic approaches and metabolomics will facilitate the translation of nutritional epidemiologic evidence to effective precision nutrition.

Keywords: biomarkers; dietary intake; dietary patterns; metabolites; metabolomics.

Figure 1

In nutritional epidemiology studies, metabolomics can aid in the assessment of exposure in terms of diet and can give a read out of the metabolic phenotype. Harnessing these complimentary aspects of metabolomics will be key.