An integrative approach to assessing diet–cancer relationships

Abstract

The relationship between diet and cancer is often viewed with skepticism by the public and health professionals, despite a considerable body of evidence and general consistency in recommendations over the past decades. A systems biology approach which integrates ‘omics’ data including metabolomics, genetics, metagenomics, transcriptomics and proteomics holds promise for developing a better understanding of how diet affects cancer and for improving the assessment of diet through biomarker discovery thereby renewing confidence in diet–cancer links. This review discusses the application of multi-omics approaches to studies of diet and cancer. Considerations and challenges that need to be addressed to facilitate the investigation of diet–cancer relationships with multi-omic approaches are also discussed.