Personalizziamo

Even nutrition could not escape the personalization and precision approaches that in recent years have “contaminated” all sectors of science a bit, supported by the growing development of data science and artificial intelligence tools. Personalization and precision can, in fact, be very important and useful and lead, in the long term, to savings in resources and indisputable beneficial effects for the population and the planet, but it is right to understand their strengths and limitations. \ r\nIn our lives we face different phases in which we would like to be as equal as possible to others and other moments in which, on the other hand, we would like, or others try to make us understand how nice it is to be able to highlight our differences and uniqueness as much as possible (in search of famous quotes about diversity, I liked one by Oscar Wilde “Be yourself; everyone else has already been taken”). In fact, needless to deny it, we are all different, and this diversity also plays an essential role in the different responses of individuals to the same diets. Personalized medicine, therefore, also includes personalized nutrition. Both aim to improve the personalized treatment of diseases, developing interventions to prevent or treat chronic diseases based on unique characteristics of the person, starting from the individual's genetics to his intestinal microbiome, but also to his previous health history and lifestyles, including the quality of sleep, physical activity and meal consumption times. The logic behind precision nutrition is simple; each individual may have a different response to specific foods and nutrients, so the best diet for that individual may be very different from the best diet for another person. A concept, however, introduced already in the 1950s by the American biochemist Roger John Williams who, in his books “Free and Unequal: The Biological Basis of Individual Liberty” or “Biochemical Individuality: The Basis for the Genetotrophic Concept”, emphasized the uniqueness of individuals in metabolism and nutrient requirements. At that time there was still a long way from a possible implementation but the mapping of the human genome, the digital age and, of course, the development of a series of omics technologies for the study of nutrigenomics (transcryptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) have changed the cards on the table. The potential of personalized nutrition in combating chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease and in managing and preventing obesity may be. However, the limitations are still just as cumbersome. Compared to traditional nutrition, the costs are higher, as is the complexity and the need for many more studies, investments and scientific advances to continue to clarify and understand gene-diet interactions and correctly evaluate long-term impacts. Added to all this are the ethical implications (such as those relating to the secure and confidential management of sensitive data and the potential psychological impact on patients), legal (development of an adequate regulatory framework, consumer protection, intellectual property) and social implications, including first of all, the possibility of fair and widespread access to this type of service.