Microfluidic opportunities in the field of nutrition

Abstract

Nutrition has always been closely related to human health, which is a constant motivational force driving research in a variety of disciplines. Over the years, the rapidly emerging field of microfluidics has been pushing forward the healthcare industry with the development of microfluidic-based, point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices. Though a great deal of work has been done in developing microfluidic platforms for disease diagnoses, potential microfluidic applications in the field of nutrition remain largely unexplored. In this Focus article, we would like to investigate the potential chances for microfluidics in the field of nutrition. We will first highlight some of the recent advances in microfluidic blood analysis systems that have the capacity to detect biomarkers of nutrition. Then we will examine existing examples of microfluidic devices for the detection of specific biomarkers of nutrition or nutrient content in food. Finally, we will discuss the challenges in this field and provide some insight into the future of applied microfluidics in nutrition.

Recent advances in the application of capillary electromigration methods for food analysis and Foodomics

“…MCE has continued demonstrating its potential for in situ analysis and fast multiparameter analysis. In the last years, novel developments and application of MCE have kept growing and several reviews have been published focusing on the application of this technology to the field of nutrition , food analysis , as well as to other specific food issues such as the analysis of transgenic food . In addition, the use of multidimensional carbon allotropes as electrochemical detectors in MCE has been recently reviewed by Martín et al.…”

Detection of contaminants in water supply: A review on state-of-the-art monitoring technologies and their applications

“…The analysis was then carried out using a 0.1 mol/L concentration of Na 2 CO 3 , PBS, CaCl 2 and FeCl 3 . Attempts have been made to use an identical approach to detect E. coli in drinking water [285], nutritional biomarkers [286], prostate specific antigen (PSA) [287] and A. acidoterrestris lysates in milk, juice and water [288]. The abilities of the microfluidic analytical platform to detect water contaminant at a very low concentration and minimum reduction of particle size could promote the usage to distinguish nanoparticles characterization in water samples.…”

Potential Point-of-Care Microfluidic Devices to Diagnose Iron Deficiency Anemia

“…For instance, red cell distribution width of less than 15% in hemoglobin may indicate IDA or anemia of mixed origin [ 28 ]. Misdiagnosis for IDA may occur because diagnosing a malnutrition disease such as IDA merely from anthropometric indicators is not straightforward unless they are severe [ 13 ]. In contrast, these inventions could be further improved by integrating on-chip filtration for blood-plasma separation with an automated sample processing and readout system to enable IDA detection from a single-biomarker.…”

“…Extensive research has been conducted to invent and improve new and existing microfluidic point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices. One of the prominent POC-based technology developed for the medical industry uses microfluidics [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Today, however, few microfluidic POC diagnosis tests are available in the market for detecting various diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [ 18 ], malaria [ 19 , 20 ], dengue virus [ 21 ], and rare cell mutations [ 22 ].…”