The International Society of Nutrigenetics & Nutrigenomics (ISNN)

16th International Congress: Precision Nutrition in Obesity

Established in 2005, the International Society of Nutrigenetics & Nutrigenomics (ISNN) seeks to increase the understanding of the role of genetic variation and dietary response and the role of nutrients in gene expression. Join ISNN October 13-14, 2023 in-person in Dallas, Texas, for the 16th Annual Scientific Congress, immediately before ObesityWeek.

REGISTER FOR THE CONGRESS IN THE OBESITYWEEK REGISTRATION SYSTEM.

Friday, October 13, 2023

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Jose Ordovas, PhD
Senior Scientist, Nutrition and Genomics Team
Professor, Nutrition and Genetics
Tufts University

Opening Ceremony & Lecture

Session 1: Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) Initiative

3:15 pm – 3:45 pm

Leanne Redman, PhD, FTOS
Professor
Pennington Biomedical Research Center

An Introduction to the Nutrition for Precision Health Research Consortium

Nutrition is at the epicenter of human health and disease. However, our current “one size fits all” approach to clinical nutrition is failing a large segment of the population. Individual factors including genetics, metabolism, physiology, microbiome, behavior, the built and contextual environment all underlie the inherent variability in response to diets. Exciting new research shows that machine learning algorithms can integrate this complex information and predict how someone responds to a given diet. If validated, this innovative approach will provide a radical change in the delivery of personalized nutrition prescriptions to promote health and treat chronic diseases in all people. The goal of the Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) research study is to study a large and diverse group of American adults and to use machine learning and artificial intelligence models to understand the individual responses to foods and dietary patterns. NPH is the first ancillary study of the All of Us Research Program. The consortium was formed January 2022 and plans to enroll approximately 10,000 participants into the NPH study. Using a discovery science approach study participants will enroll in either one or two modules; Module 1: a cross-sectional study to characterize daily dietary intake and accompanying nutritional status, biological and other measures over 10 days, as well as physiological responses following a liquid mixed meal tolerance test; Module 2 a crossover randomized study of three 14-day dietary interventions implemented in a community dwelling setting; Module 3 a crossover randomized study of the same three dietary interventions as in Module 2, implemented in a domiciled setting. Participants in these three Modules will contribute simultaneous, multimodal measurements (e.g., dietary assessment, anthropometric, physiological, behavioral, social, and contextual measurements) carefully selected for their relevance to understanding responses to foods, including nutrients, food components, and dietary patterns. The rich set of data and biospecimens will be used to inform paradigm shifting approaches that enable large-scale delivery of personalized dietary prescriptions to promote general health, delay cardiometabolic diseases, and importantly address health disparities.

3:45 pm – 4:15 pm

Eric Ravussin, PhD, FTOS
Associate Executive Director – Clinical Science
Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Nutrition for Precision Health: Clinical Protocols and Studies

Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) is the first ancillary study of the All of Us Research Program. We plan to enroll approximately 10,000 participants into the NPH study. NPH is discovery science research involving modular components, including:

Module 1 is a cross-sectional study of approximately 10,000 individuals enrolled in the All of Us Research Program to characterize their daily dietary intake and accompanying nutritional status, biological and other measures measured over approximately 8 to 14 days, as well as physiological responses following a liquid mixed meal tolerance test.

Module 2 is a crossover design randomized study of three dietary interventions implemented in a community dwelling setting. This module will enroll approximately 1,500 individuals who have completed Module 1. Participants will undergo three controlled dietary interventions provided for 14-days each, in a sequence determined by cohort randomization, and separated by washout periods. Physiological responses following a diet-specific mixed meal tolerance test will be measured.

Module 3 is a crossover design randomized study of the same three dietary interventions as in Module 2, implemented in a domiciled setting. This module will enroll approximately 500 individuals who have completed Module 1. Participation in Modules 2 and 3 will be mutually exclusive. Module 3 participants will be studied in residence and will undergo the three 14-day dietary interventions (as in Module 2), in a sequence determined by cohort randomization, with washout periods of at least 14 days. Physiological responses following a liquid mixed meal tolerance test and a diet-specific mixed meal tolerance test (on separate days) will be measured.

Within these modules, NPH will evaluate the use of novel dietary assessment measures to improve dietary assessments and to prescribe assessments to people in future research with increased precision.

4:15 pm – 5:00 pm

Saroja Voruganti, PhD
Associate Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Participant Engagement and Return of Individual Results, followed by Q&A

Poster Presentations and Cocktails (cash bar)      5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Session 2: Omics Tools for Application of Precision Nutrition to Obesity

8:30 am – 9:00 am

Brian Bennett, PhD
Research Leader, USDA ARS WHNRC
Associate Adjunct Professor
University of California Davis

Impact of Microbiota and Host Genetics on the Effect of Diet on Metabolic Health

9:00 am – 9:30 am

Bradley Ferguson, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Nevada, Reno

Role of Dietary Epigenetic Modifiers in Regulating Cardiac Dysfunction

Histone acetylation is an important epigenetic modification that controls pathological cardiac hypertrophy (enlargement), fibrosis (scarring) and heart failure (HF). Over the last several years, our lab and others have shown that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition attenuated cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis that contributed to improved cardiac function. Recent interest in our lab has further shown that food bioactives can serve as HDAC inhibitors to ameliorate pathological cardiac hypertrophy. Indeed, we report that emodin, an antraquinone, serves as an HDAC inhibitor that normalized global changes in gene expression in stress-induced cardiac myocytes as well as attenuated pathological cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis in hypertensive male and female mice. However, recent reports show that gut bacteria and the liver often metabolize parent compounds, and thus few parent compounds reach their intended target tissues, e.g. the heart following oral consumption. Thus, it has become critical that new research studies focus on understanding how food bioactives interact with the microbiome in diseased and healthy states, as well as identify metabolites that affect epigenetic signatures in target tissues. Indeed, reports demonstrate changes in the gut microbiome and circulating metabolites in response to hypertension. We report that emodin increased the abundance of cardioprotective bacteria (e.g. Akkermansia) in hypertensive mice, and rapidly (within 3 days) decreased microbial diversity, while increasing the abundance of cardioprotective bacteria specifically in the colon (e.g. Akkermansia) as well as health-promoting bacteria (e.g. Roseburia) throughout the gut. Future work will need to establish if parent compounds directly drive bacterial growth or indirectly affect mucus production and pH regulation for healthy bacterial growth, or if food bioactive metabolites elicit these affects. In addition, future work will need to investigate the link between food bioactives and the microbiome-epigenome axis in CVDs. However, these data show that microbial changes occur rapidly with cardioprotective food bioactives and that these compounds can improve bacterial abundance of known cardioprotective species in both healthy and hypertensive mice.  

9:30 am – 10:00 am

Diana Thomas, PhD, FTOS
Professor of Mathematics
US Military Academy West Point

Machine Learning in Nutrition Research

10:00 am – 10:30 am

Noa Rappaport, PhD
Senior Research Scientist
Institute for Systems Biology

Capturing Phenotypic Heterogeneity of Metabolic Health using Multiomics-Based Blood Measures

Multiomic profiling provides a comprehensive measurement of molecular features in biological samples, which allows for a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between genetics, environment, and lifestyle factors in metabolic health. This talk will describe a study that developed machine learning models of BMI by integrating multiomic data from deeply profiled human cohorts (Arivale and TwinsUK). The results demonstrate that omics-based measures can capture personalized deviations from the expected average relationships, leading to better phenotypic heterogeneity of metabolic health in all aspects tested. Additionally, participants with metabolically unhealthy phenotypes showed greater improvements in health in response to a personalized lifestyle coaching intervention, even preceding weight loss itself. Multiomic profiling offers a promising paradigm for quantifying metabolic health and developing holistic measures of health beyond traditional metrics, which can lead to better disease risk prediction and monitoring of therapeutic and lifestyle interventions as measurement costs decrease.

Selected Abstracts Presentations    10:45 am – 11:30 am

Closing Ceremony     11:30 am – 11:45 am