Nutri-microbiome epidemiology, an emerging field to disentangle the interplay between nutrition and microbiome for human health.

Abstract

Diet and nutrition have a substantial impact on the human microbiome, and interact with the microbiome, especially gut microbiome, to modulate various diseases and health status. Microbiome research has also guided the nutrition field to a more integrative direction, becoming an essential component of the rising area of precision nutrition. In this review, we provide a broad insight into the interplay among diet, nutrition, microbiome and microbial metabolites for their roles in the human health. Among the microbiome epidemiological studies regarding the associations of diet and nutrition with microbiome and its derived metabolites, we summarize those most reliable findings, and highlight evidence for the relationships between diet and disease-associated microbiome and its functional readout. Then, the latest advances of the microbiome-based precision nutrition research and multi-disciplinary integration are described. Finally, we discuss several outstanding challenges and opportunities in the field of nutri-microbiome epidemiology.