Tufts' National Center for Precision Health, based at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), has a bold goal: to refine personalized nutrition regimens by taking into account the many factors that affect how individuals respond to diet. Among those factors are dietary intake, microbiome (the community of bacteria that live in the gut), metabolism, nutritional status, genetics, and the environment.
Designated by the NIH as one of six clinical centers in the country for the initiative, the HNRCA received $8.23 million to participate in an innovative study to develop algorithms that predict individual responses to food and dietary patterns. The funding supports the NIH Common Fund’s Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH), powered by All of Us Research Program to improve the understanding of nutrition and inform more personalized nutrition recommendations.
One contributor to the work on that study’s first module: biopsychology major Katherine Erler, A25. While privacy restrictions for the project meant that Erler could not formally be a researcher on the team, Erler observed as research colleagues captured individual dietary responses through the use of a mixed meal tolerance test. That’s a test that shows how much insulin an individual’s body makes after drinking a liquid meal beverage that contains fats, protein, and carbohydrates.
Erler received a Laidlaw Fellowship to work on the study, conducting research under the mentorship of Sai Das, a scientist on the HNRCA’s Energy Metabolism Team. Laidlaw Fellowships fund undergraduate students over the course of two consecutive years while they work on research and leadership skills with a faculty mentor.
Erler conducted a literature review to determine the importance of the tests used by the researchers, to establish the reasoning for collecting certain biospecimens over the entire duration of the meal tolerance test, and to assess varying environmental and biological exposures through saliva, hair, and nail samples. She also reviewed the results of two surveys meant to help researchers assess individuals’ usual diets, and evaluated physical measures, such as hand grip strength, activity and heart rate variability, sleep schedule, and hunger levels.
The ultimate goal of the larger study: to provide the data that will help researchers and health-care professionals move away from one-size-fits-all diet recommendations and create customized diet plans for people based on individual differences like nutritional status, genetics, and metabolism.
Pictured above: Katherine Erler, at right, with her mentor Sai Das