Personalized nutrition (PN) has been proposed as a strategy to increase the effectiveness of dietary recommendations and ultimately improve health status.
We aimed to assess whether including omics-based PN in an e-commerce tool improves dietary behavior and metabolic profile in general population.
A 21-wk parallel, single-blinded, randomized intervention involved 193 adults assigned to a control group following Mediterranean diet recommendations (n = 57, completers = 36), PN (n = 70, completers = 45), or personalized plan (PP, n = 68, completers = 53) integrating a behavioral change program with PN recommendations. The intervention used metabolomics, proteomics, and genetic data to assist participants in creating personalized shopping lists in a simulated e-commerce retailer portal. The primary outcome was the Mediterranean diet adherence screener (MEDAS) score; secondary outcomes included biometric and metabolic markers and dietary habits.
Volunteers were categorized with a scoring system based on biomarkers of lipid, carbohydrate metabolism, inflammation, oxidative stress, and microbiota, and dietary recommendations delivered accordingly in the PN and PP groups. The intervention significantly increased MEDAS scores in all volunteers (control-3 points; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.2, 3.8; PN-2.7 points; 95% CI: 2.0, 3.3; and PP-2.8 points; 95% CI: 2.1, 3.4; q < 0.001). No significant differences were observed in dietary habits or health parameters between PN and control groups after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Nevertheless, personalized recommendations significantly (false discovery rate < 0.05) and selectively enhanced the scores calculated with biomarkers of carbohydrate metabolism (β: -0.37; 95% CI: -0.56, -0.18), oxidative stress (β: -0.37; 95% CI: -0.60, -0.15), microbiota (β: -0.38; 95% CI: -0.63, -0.15), and inflammation (β: -0.78; 95% CI: -1.24, -0.31) compared with control diet.
Integration of personalized strategies within an e-commerce-like tool did not enhance adherence to Mediterranean diet or improved health markers compared with general recommendations. The metabotyping approach showed promising results and more research is guaranteed to further promote its application in PN. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT04641559 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04641559?cond=NCT04641559&rank=1).

BACKGROUND: The overall mortality rate in cases of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) has not improved over the past 30 years, mostly because of the high treatment failure rate among patients with regionally metastatic disease. To better understand the pathobiologic processes leading to lymphatic metastasis development, there is an urgent need for relevant animal models.
METHODS: HNSCC cell lines were implanted into the tongues of athymic nude mice. Histology, immunohistochemistry, and ex vivo 2-photon microscopy were used to evaluate tumor progress and spread.
RESULTS: Orthotopic xenografts of different HNSCC cell lines produced distinct patterns of survival, tumor histology, disease progression rate, and lymph node metastasis development. Remarkably, all injected cell types reached the lymph nodes within 24 hours after injection, but not all developed metastasis.
CONCLUSIONS: This orthotopic xenograft model closely mimics several characteristics of human cancer and could be extremely valuable for translational studies focusing on lymphatic metastasis development and pathobiology.