NIH Study Aims to Transform Nutrition Science

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced what it calls the largest study yet to research “precision nutrition.” The $156 million project will follow 10,000 Americans over a five-year period to understand how individuals respond to different diets, taking into account genetic factors, lifestyle and environmental factors, and gut microbes.

Participants will track what they eat and wear monitors to record physical activity, blood sugar, and other physiological measures. They will undergo testing after eating a specific meal at a clinic. Some of the participants will be asked to follow a particular diet prior to clinical testing, and some volunteers will live at a clinical center where they will be fed tightly controlled diets for three two-week periods.

Once the data have been collected, researchers will create models to predict the best diet for an individual. A subsequent five-year phase of the study will test the effectiveness of those models in clinical trials. The research may lead to individualized diets that can be tailored to a person’s genes and microbiome.

Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, says the new study, which will begin recruiting subjects by early 2023, “has the potential to truly transform the field of nutrition science,” generating new tools, methods, and “a wealth of data to fuel discovery science for years to come.”