Precision Nutrition & Healthy Aging
Precision Nutrition aims to identify individual-level biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that influence responses to diet, with the goal of optimizing health outcomes and preventing or managing chronic disease. Over the last four decades, the HNRCA has been at the forefront of this field; by identifying the complex relationships between nutrition, genetics, and environmental factors influencing health, our research has led to foundational precision science discoveries that are being developed further.
Scientists in this research directive leverage current advances in omics, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to gain insights into the role of dietary factors and their impact on health and aging.
Examples of our work
Research Summary: Predicting obesity risk for tailored interventions
Obesity, a major risk factor for many chronic diseases, is both prevalent and rising globally. Obesity is controlled by hundreds of genes and lifestyle factors, making it extremely complicated to determine who will become obese and why. Scientists in our Precision Nutrition & Healthy Aging directive used machine learning to create an algorithm incorporating genetics, epigenetics, and lifestyle factors to predict the likelihood of someone becoming obese. Our modelling can be used to further our understanding of how specific foods, rather than generic dietary advice, will impact individual risk of obesity and help inform potential interventions to reduce that risk and associated chronic diseases.
Research Summary: The importance of epigenetics in assessing cardiovascular disease risk
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in the United States and thus a critical area for scientific innovation. Work in our Precision Nutrition & Healthy Aging directive examined how quickly the body clears fat after eating—an understudied risk factor linked to higher disease risk when clearance is slower. This ability varies widely by individual, age, and sex, yet genetics explain only a small portion of the difference. We investigated whether DNA methylation, a key epigenetic mechanism, contributes to this variability. Epigenetics accounted for significantly more variation than genetics alone, expanding our understanding of dietary fat response and emphasizing the importance of the epigenome in assessing cardiovascular disease risk and developing individually tailored interventions.
