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Precision nutrition in diabetes: when population-based dietary advice gets personal

Diabetologia (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Diet plays a fundamental role in maintaining long-term health, with healthful diets being endorsed by current dietary guidelines for the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. However, the response to dietary interventions varies widely, highlighting the need for refinement and personalisation beyond population-based ‘one size fits all’. This article reviews the clinical evidence supporting precision nutrition as a fundamental approach for dietary advice in diabetes. Further, it proposes a framework for the eventual implementation of precision nutrition and discusses key challenges for the application of this approach in the prevention of diabetes. One implication of this approach is that precision nutrition would not exclude the parallel goal of population-based healthy dietary advice. Nevertheless, the shift in prioritising precision nutrition is needed to reflect the dynamic nature of responses to dietary interventions that vary among individuals and change over the life course.

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Abbreviations

CGM:

Continuous glucose monitoring

PREDICT:

Personalised REsponses to DIetary Composition Trial

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Acknowledgements

I thank J. C. Florez (Massachusetts General Hospital, USA) for critical reading of this manuscript and P. W. Franks (Lund University, Sweden) for informative and informal discussion on this topic. The research was partially supported by the ADA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the ADA or the NIH.

Author’s relationships and activities

JM is an Associate Editor for Diabetologia but played no role in the evaluation of this manuscript. The author declares that there are no other relationships or activities that might bias, or be perceived to bias, this work.

Contribution statement

JM is the sole author of this article and is the final guarantor of the work.

Funding

Work in the author’s laboratory on precision nutrition in diabetes is in part supported by funding from the ADA (7-21-JDFM-005), and the National Institutes of Health (P30 DK040561 and UG1 HD107691).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Diabetes Unit and Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

  2. Programs in Metabolism and Medical & Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

  3. Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

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Merino, J. Precision nutrition in diabetes: when population-based dietary advice gets personal. Diabetologia (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-022-05721-6

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Keywords

  • Diabetes
  • Diabetes prevention
  • Diet
  • Dietary guidelines
  • Personalised medicine
  • Precision medicine
  • Precision nutrition
  • Review