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Personalized nutrients are the building blocks of tailored dietary interventions. They’re not chemical substances invented just for you — although that would actually be amazing. These are the same nutrients you can get from the environment and supplements, except they’re precisely what your body requires and not what society thinks you should have.
The personalization of nutrition is a hot health trend backed by decades of research, which belongs to the future. Its time has finally come, so discover why this revolutionary concept may be the key to better chronic disease prevention and management.
No two individuals are biologically identical, not even twins. Each person is a product of genetic variation and environmental influences. Although humans are genetically similar, slight differences between individuals can influence susceptibility to diseases and reactions to certain medications.
For example, two siblings born from the same egg and sperm can become unique from one another, as they undergo small mutations during development and adapt to the conditions they encounter throughout their lives.
If everyone is unique, then it only makes sense that everyone requires a unique set of nutrients for wellness. Personalized nutrition addresses this notion, as any mismatch between genes and dietary intake can negatively affect the body.
This modern term aims to replicate the magic of old-world food knowledge. Before industrialization, everybody mostly ate what was locally available. Parents shaped the household food environment, raising children on family recipes and teaching them conventional cooking practices.
The geographic availability of nutrient sources, parental dietary regulation and the continuous transmission of gastronomic wisdom developed local food cultures. The diets that emerged from them were sufficient to meet people’s biological needs, as encoded in their genes.
Globalization has disrupted this harmony with the environment. Suddenly, food products from faraway places have become easily accessible. The internet has bridged food cultures, encouraging everyone to branch out. The explosion of nontraditional food options has driven significant cultural shifts, altering long-established dietary habits and changing how local populations consume food in terms of quality and quantity. Some have developed a taste for palatable, lower-nutrient foods, and overindulgence has become socially acceptable.
Today’s personalized nutrition movement can’t convince the world to revert to the eating conventions of the preindustrial era. However, its proponents aim to promote customized diet plans based on a person’s genetics, microbiome, health history and lifestyle rather than one-size-fits-all advice for wellness.
Nutrient-related chronic diseases as a health threat are a fairly recent phenomenon. Infectious diseases were the primary cause of death before industrialization, indicating that traditional local diets didn’t cause long-lasting health conditions that required ongoing medical attention. In contrast, chronic illnesses account for most of the deaths worldwide today, when exposure to imported ingredients and foreign cuisines is highest.
In response, health organizations have standardized dietary guidelines to prevent common chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, and better clinically manage patients. While these standards help improve the level of care people living with chronic diseases receive, policymakers rarely consider genetic and cultural factors when recommending dietary intake.
The ineffectiveness of eating a vague, balanced diet and other pieces of generic advice can be more pronounced in countries with diverse immigrant populations, such as the United States and Canada.
Moreover, putting specific diets on a pedestal can be detrimental. This practice assumes that some diets are better for most people than others, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Every local diet unaffected by significant foreign influences is sufficient to protect the native population from nutrient-related chronic diseases. Promoting a nonnative diet to the general public without contextualizing it is unlikely to achieve its intended health benefits.
For example, the Mediterranean diet provides personalized nutrients mainly to people born and bred in the region. Encouraging others to adopt this dietary regimen for weight management while ignoring its lifestyle components may fall short in meaningfully curbing obesity. Demographic groups that value social and mindful eating less — which are front and center in the broader Mediterranean food culture — are less likely to be intentional about meal planning and enjoy the diet’s perceived healthy benefits.
The science behind personalized vitamins and has matured enough to be commercially viable. MarketsandMarkets projects that the global personalized nutrition market to reach $30.94 billion by 2030, nearly doubling from its estimated size in 2025.
Technological advancements, such as omics sciences, wearables, and artificial intelligence-driven platforms, and the adoption of preventive health care players, including insurers and providers, are the primary growth drivers.
High costs of personalized vitamin and mineral supplements and the lack of standardized frameworks hold the market back from growing more quickly. Nevertheless, expect more corporate wellness programs to incorporate personalized nutrition into them from here on out, as more health plans cover its corresponding tests and services.
Here are the answers to the most common questions about personalized nutrients.
Personalized vitamin packs are worth the expense, as their custom formulations address your diagnosed nutrient deficiencies. Only a qualified health care professional, such as a dietitian, can determine whether you absolutely need them, so consult one for a proper assessment.
Not everyone has to take supplements, as they’re only for filling the nutritional gaps you can’t close with your diet. The most commonly recommended ones are vitamin D, magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids because most can’t get enough of them from food alone. However, dietary supplements are beneficial if they match your nutrient deficiencies, which only a qualified health care provider can identify.
Any dietary supplement is not a waste if your body truly needs it. Otherwise, you risk damaging your kidneys and liver due to oversupplementation. To achieve your wellness goals and make every penny count, consult a qualified professional for personalized nutrition advice.
Getting personalized nutrients from supplements may help speed up muscle recovery. Speak with a qualified health care provider for targeted supplementation advice.
Personalized vitamin and mineral supplements may help boost athletic performance, as they ensure targeted nutrient delivery to address specific deficiencies. A qualified health care provider can tailor a customized plan to address your nutritional gaps to minimize the inflammation you experience from exercise and support natural energy production to reduce fatigue.
Customized dietary interventions are necessary to mitigate the effects of modern dietary preferences brought on by the world’s increasing interconnectedness. Personalized nutrients should only become more accessible and affordable over time, so exciting times are ahead for wellness enthusiasts.
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