Lessons on dietary biomarkers from twin studies

Abstract

Metabolomic and microbiome profiling are promising tools to identify biomarkers of food intake and health status. The individual's genetic makeup plays a significant role on health, metabolism, gut microbes and diet and twin studies provide unique opportunities to untangle gene–environment effects on complex phenotypes. This brief review discusses the value of twin studies in nutrition research with a particular focus on metabolomics and the gut microbiome. Although, the twin model is a powerful tool to segregate the genetic component, to date, very few studies combine the twin design and metabolomics/microbiome in nutritional sciences. Moreover, since the individual's diet has a strong influence on the microbiome composition and the gut microbiome is modifiable (60 % of microbiome diversity is due to the environment), future studies should target the microbiome via dietary interventions.

Nutritional Metabolomics in Cancer Epidemiology: Current Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions

“…Efforts to replicate dietary biomarkers are still in their nascent stages; however, a recent observational study replicated 63 previously identified diet-metabolite associations and validated several putative dietary biomarkers identified in prior feeding studies [42]. Finally, investigators have begun to leverage twin studies in combination with dietary metabolomics and microbiome data in order to untangle complex gene-environment effects [43].…”