Link between food and health: From gene expression to nutritional recommendations Julie-anne Nazare, Emmanuel Disse, Hubert Vidal, Martine Laville * Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine Rhône-Alpes (CRNH-RA), Bâtiment 1, Hôpital Edouard Herriot, 5 Place d’Arsonval, 69437 Lyon Cedex 03, France Université de Lyon (Univ Lyon), F-69622 Lyon, France INSA de Lyon, RMND, F-69621 Villeurbanne, France INSERM U870, (Faculté Lyon-Sud ou IMBL) F-69921 Oullins, France INRA U1235, (Faculté Lyon-Sud) F-69921 Oullins, France Hospices Civils de Lyon, (Endocrinologie, diabètes et nutrition/hôpital Edouard Herriot) F-69437 Lyon, France article info Article history: Received 4 March 2009 Accepted 6 March 2009 Available online 16 March 2009 Keywords: Nutrition research Food Genomics Metabolomics art du bien manger Gastronomy Metabolic diseases abstract Joint research in food and health could have large potential benefits and could substantially reduce risks for metabolic diseases. Nutritionists now work transdisciplinarily using molecular and cellular biology as well as physiology to develop research strategies going from knowledge on gene expression to dietary recommendations in order to meet individual requirements. Changing food habits in order to follow nutritional recommendations is hard but possible. To reach this aim nutrition research needs to move from a focused approach towards a broader approach including human sciences and ‘‘art du bien man- ger”. Professionals in food and hospitality have a genuine and essential knowledge in culinary art, prod- ucts presentation and gastronomy. They must certainly be key actors to help nutritionists and scientists to implement in a practical way the nutritional recommendations in the general population, with a cen- tral question: How to change «eating» towards healthy, tasty food by changing food offer? Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. There is more and more evidence that the joint research in food and health could have large potential benefits and could substan- tially reduce risks for metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabe- tes. Food influences health and health influences food. This recognition suggests that opportunities exist for food to contribute to better health and for health to contribute to better food offer, combining optimal palatability and nutritional benefits. Nutrition- ists should now be working transdisciplinarily with geneticists, molecular biologists and bioinformaticians using new tools of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics as well as the traditional physiological approach without forgetting the understanding of the different components involved in food behaviour. Moreover, one crucial point in improving food behaviour is maintaining a bet- ter diet in the long term. We speculate that compliance could be improved by higher food palatability and more convenience. Such approaches may help our understanding of how to modify people’s diets to prevent or delay the onset of a possible illness, as well as may lead to recommendations that can be refined to meet individ- ual requirements. This could lead to new research strategies going from the knowledge of nutrition-induced changes in gene expression to die- tary recommendations. For example, in a study at the Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine Rhône-Alpes, lean men were sub- mitted to fat overfeeding (+700 kcal) for one month and increased their body weight and fat mass. This was parallel to an increase in the expression of genes involved in fat storage and a decrease in gene involved in fat oxidation (Meugnier et al., 2007). Such results suggest that control lean subjects are able to adapt their metabo- lism by increasing fat storage capacity. Classical clinical nutrition experiments bring knowledge on the mechanisms involved in the deleterious effect of specific kinds of feeding patterns and can also help to distinguish people who are more prone to diabetes or met- abolic syndrome according to their genetic background. Tools are also being developed in order to look at the bioavailability of spe- cific food products and at how they could be modulated thanks to technological modifications (fiber, low-glycemic index, ...) or feed- ing pattern (de Rougemont et al., 2007; Nazare et al., in press). The aim of nutrition research is also to find early molecular profiles (‘‘biomarkers”), which may be a useful step on the way to identify- ing diseases before they became public health problems. These experimental and mechanistic approaches will give the knowledge 0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2009.03.003 * Corresponding author. Address: Centre de Recherche en Nutrition Humaine Rhône-Alpes (CRNH-RA), Bâtiment 1, Hôpital Edouard Herriot, 5 Place d’Arsonval, 69437 Lyon Cedex 03, France. Tel.: +33 (0) 4 78 11 07 08; fax: +33 (0) 4 78 11 95 39. E-mail address: martine.laville@chu-lyon.fr (M. Laville). Food Quality and Preference 20 (2009) 537–538 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Quality and Preference journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual