Proving associations between good nutrition and good health has proven difficult – until early in 2020, when a global scientific team developed a five-minute, simple-to-administer urine test able to capture a person’s unique ‘nutritional fingerprint’.

By testing, then analysing the urine of study participants following specific diets, they found that they could ascertain ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ metabolic patterns and predict with some accuracy those at risk of developing some of the world’s most costly lifestyle-related diseases, enabling early dietary intervention and disease prevention.

In the first study, published in the journal Nature Food, scientists at Imperial College, London and Murdoch University’s Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC), with collaborators from Chicago’s Northwestern University and University of Illinois, showed that individuals metabolise identical foods differently.

The scientists also found associations between various urinary metabolites and disease-linked health issues.

In a related study, also published in Nature Food, the ICL and ANPC scientists teamed up with UK researchers at Newcastle University and Aberystwyth University.

They asked 19 healthy respondents to follow one of four different diets, then generated an individual ‘nutritional fingerprint’ or Dietary Metabotype Score (DMS) from each.

The study revealed that, in general, the healthier an individual’s diet, the higher that person’s DMS. Participants with higher DMS scores had lower blood sugar and excreted slightly more calories.

Professor Elaine Holmes, Premier’s Fellow and Director of the Centre for Computational and Systems Medicine at Murdoch, says understanding diet’s impact on gut bacteria at the individual level paves the way to new preventative-health strategies.

“Based on the metabolic response to the four different diets, we were able to create a model that can predict the healthiness of a person’s diet,” Prof. Holmes told Murdoch University News.

“This model will provide a framework for developing precision nutrition programs aimed at healthy weight loss or maintenance,” Prof. Holmes said.