About this Research Topic
Chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide with increasing prevalence in all age groups, genders, and ethnicities. Emerging evidence suggests that precision nutrition plays a pivotal role in the prevention and management of chronic diseases and has been recognized as a key focus for the next ten years of health research. Currently, one of the major challenges in precision nutrition is the valid and reliable assessment of foods and nutrients intake, especially whole foods (e.g., fermented foods) and macromolecules (e.g., polysaccharides), as well as their impact on host health and disease. Strong evidence has supported that the biomarkers (e.g., metabolites) as an intermediate bridge can effectively link precision nutrition and chronic diseases, which can contribute to objectively assessing food consumption and precisely determining the biological effects of complex foods (ingredients). However, still we are at the very beginning to understand how precision nutrition regulates biomarkers to prevent chronic diseases with individual differences. The molecular mechanisms of key biomarkers in chronic diseases have not been fully elucidated and extensive studies are crucially warranted.
This Research Topic, therefore, aims to gather the latest research which uncovers the role of key biomarkers in chronic diseases and how precision nutrition can modulate this process in different populations. The interaction between precision nutrition, biomarkers discovery, and chronic diseases can shed light on implementing precision nutrition approaches in the effective prevention and management of chronic diseases.
We welcome submissions of Original Research, Full Reviews, Mini Reviews, and Perspectives that focus on but are not limited to the following topics:
· Individual differences (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.) in response to varying foods and nutrients in a population with chronic diseases;
· Identifying novel biomarkers (core microbes, specific bacteria, metabolites, etc.) that can be modulated by foods or nutrients and their association with chronic diseases;
· Application of the emerging high-throughput multi-omics (metagenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, etc.) and bioinformatics tools (big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, etc.) in the search for biomarkers;
· Molecular mechanisms of key biomarkers in preventing chronic diseases, especially the mining of therapeutic targets and the pathway and form of interaction with them;
· Systematic exploration of the pathways, biomarkers, and molecular mechanisms of how precision nutrition modulates the risk for chronic diseases onset and progression;
· Precision nutrition approaches in the prevention and management of chronic diseases.
Keywords: whole foods, macromolecules, mediators, gut microbes, metabolites, chronic diseases
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.