Personalized nutrition for people with diabetes and at risk of diabetes has begun

Abstract

Food and nutrition are essential parts for the management of blood glucose of patients with diabetes and other metabolic diseases. The results of recent human clinical studies have shown that the blood glucose levels change differently in different people in response to the same standardized meals. This phenomenon shows the challenges to find a one-size-fits-all approach to combat diabetes. With the development of technologies, personalized nutrition/precision nutrition has gradually become more practical in order to treat individual diabetes. The aim of this review article is to summarize personalized nutrition's progress and potential in treating the diabetes epidemic. We have searched PubMed to identify relevant articles and found that personalized nutrition on multiple factors associated with an individual has started to draw attention to scientific communities. Two seminal studies have shown that healthy adults show differential responses of postprandial blood glucose levels to the same standardized meals. Human clinical trials have started to integrate sensor technologies such as continuous glucose monitoring and personal data such as genomic sequences and microbiome to provide personalized nutrition advice, and shown promises in intervention and management of type 2 diabetes. It appears that the interplays of diets and genomes, gut microbiome, gut transit time, insulin sensitivity, cultural, social, and economic factors should all be considered to create a personalized treatment for an individual's chronic metabolic disease. This probably can be achieved through the integration of personalized nutrition and personalized food intervention with the development of technologies and advances in food and nutrition sciences. More research should be anticipated soon.