We Are What We Eat: Nutrigenomics of the “Diet” Exposome

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

We are currently facing significant human health and societal challenges that are linked to our unhealthy food patterns and lifestyles with consequence for the ageing process across the life course. To improve such situation an in-depth understanding of the exact mechanisms underpinning the role of nutrition in controlling human health is required. Nutrigenomics is the combination of molecular nutrition research and applications of high-throughput genomics tools in nutrition research to understand how nutrition influences immune-metabolic pathways and homeostatic control, how this regulation is disturbed in the early phase of a diet-related disease and to what extent individual sensitizing (epi)genotypes contribute to such diseases. Our own research is focused on the better understanding of the role of the gut for human health. The gut is essential for efficient absorption and metabolic processing of nutrients and food bioactives and represents a critical barrier and gatekeeper for our body. The gut microbiota contributes to nutrient processing and signalling, and produces metabolites with essential functions, such as vitamins, short-chain fatty acids and certain bile acids. Compromised functionality of the gut has been linked to several metabolic complications and complex diseases emphasizing its relevance for optimal human health and effective prevention of diseases. Recently the gut microbiota-brain axis got a lot of attention because of the potential influence of gut microbiota in the progression of diseases affecting the central nervous system. Patients affected by such diseases shared the prevalence of the same families of microorganisms in their microbiota that differs from that of healthy controls. Targeting the gut microbiome is worth further investigation as a potential target to mitigate cognitive decline during aging. These strategies may include individualized healthier food pattern, probiotics, food bioactives, or drugs that target specifically the small intestine to improve metabolic health of the gut-microbiota-liver/brain axis.