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Metabolomics: building on a century of biochemistry to guide human health

Metabolomics volume 1, pages 3–9 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Medical diagnosis and treatment efficacy will improve significantly when a more personalized system for health assessment is implemented. This system will require diagnostics that provide sufficiently detailed information about the metabolic status of individuals such that assay results will be able to guide food, drug and lifestyle choices to maintain or improve distinct aspects of health without compromising others. Achieving this goal will use the new science of metabolomics – comprehensive metabolic profiling of individuals linked to the biological understanding of human integrative metabolism. Candidate technologies to accomplish this goal are largely available, yet they have not been brought into practice for this purpose. Metabolomic technologies must be sufficiently rapid, accurate and affordable to be routinely accessible to both healthy and acutely ill individuals. The use of metabolomic data to predict the health trajectories of individuals will require bioinformatic tools and quantitative reference databases. These databases containing metabolite profiles from the population must be built, stored and indexed according to metabolic and health status. Building and annotating these databases with the knowledge to predict how a specific metabolic pattern from an individual can be adjusted with diet, drugs and lifestyle to improve health represents a logical application of the biochemistry knowledge that the life sciences have produced over the past 100 years.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    J. Bruce German

  2. Nestle Research Center, Lausanne, Switzerland

    J. Bruce German

  3. Department of Entomology and University of California Davis Cancer Center, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Bruce D. Hammock

  4. Lipomics Technologies, Inc., 3410 Industrial Boulevard, Suite 103, West Sacramento, CA, 95691, USA

    Steven M. Watkins

Authors
  1. J. Bruce German
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  2. Bruce D. Hammock
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  3. Steven M. Watkins
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Correspondence to Steven M. Watkins.

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German, J.B., Hammock, B.D. & Watkins, S.M. Metabolomics: building on a century of biochemistry to guide human health. Metabolomics 1, 3–9 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-005-1102-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-005-1102-8

Key words

  • metabolomics
  • metabolic profiling
  • human health