NMR foodomics in the assessment of diet and effects beyond nutrients

Abstract

Purpose of reviewThis review provides an overview of most recent research studies employing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics in the assessment of effects of diet and food ingestion.Recent findingsNMR metabolomics is a useful tool in the elucidation of specific diets, for example, the Mediterranean diet, the New Nordic diet types, and also for comparing vegan, vegetarian and omnivore diets where specific diet-linked metabolite perturbations have been identified. Another core area where NMR metabolomics is employed involves research focused on examining specific food components or ingredients, including dietary fibers and other functional components. In several cases, NMR metabolomics has aided to document how specific food components exert effects on the metabolic activity of the gut microbiota. Research has also demonstrated the potential use of NMR metabolomics in assessing diet quality and interactions between specific food components such as meat and diet quality. The implications of these findings are important as they address that background diet can be decisive for if food items turn out to exert either harmful or health-promoting effects.SummaryNMR metabolomics can provide important mechanistic insight and aid to biomarker discovery with implications for compliance and food registration purposes.

Acute changes in the metabolome following resistance exercise combined with intake of different protein sources (cricket, pea, whey)

“…During the last decades, metabolomics has been established as a commonly employed approach in nutrition research. Based on the analyses of bio uids such as urine and blood, numerous investigations have reported the application of metabolomics in the study of dietary interventions with various food items (Bertram, 2023;Gibbons et al, 2015). Metabolomics studies focused on examining the acute effects of protein intake have mainly been conducted on blood samples (Skov et al, 2019;Thøgersen et al, 2021a;Thøgersen et al, 2021b), while acute metabolomics studies on urine are scarce.…”