# Foundational studies for precision nutrition

> **NIH NIH R01** · TEXAS A&M AGRILIFE RESEARCH · 2021 · $673,151

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The incidence of cardiometabolic disease has soared during last half-century despite national efforts to improve
health through universal dietary recommendations. A critical limitation of this approach is the lack of
consideration given to dietary response differences based on an individual’s genetics, which is essential for the
nascent field of precision nutrition. The long-term goal of this proposal is to develop the foundation and an
experimental platform to support in-depth biological analyses of precision nutrition interventions. The objective
of this proposal is to develop an experimental genetic reference platform that models human genetic diversity
into a model for precision nutrition. Although largely relying on a discovery-driven approach, the central
hypothesis is that a major failing of public health efforts has been generalization of dietary recommendations and
that through matching dietary recommendations to an individual’s metabolic needs, cardiovascular health will be
greatly improved at the individual and population level. This hypothesis is based on published and unpublished
work. The rationale is that completion of these studies will identify genetic and metabolic factors and high-level
mechanisms by which diet influences differential cardiometabolic health that can be used to develop new
paradigms for precision nutrition. The proposed work will also provide a repository of data and samples from the
Collaborative Cross, a publicly available mouse genetic reference population. The central hypothesis will be
tested by pursuing three aims: 1) Identify cardiometabolic health traits that are influenced by gene-by-diet (GxD)
interactions; 2) Determine the genetic architecture regulating diet-dependent effects on cardiometabolic health;
and 3) Validate a precision nutrition paradigm to predict effects of diet on cardiometabolic disease. These aims
will be pursued using an innovative combination of a novel, publicly available mouse genetic reference population
and human relevant diets for which substantial epidemiological data exists on their cardiometabolic effects. The
proposed research is significant because it will determine the health impact that individual genetic variation has
on response to common diets and identify those characteristics that are influenced by GxD interactions. It is also
significant because it will provide a public database of physiological responses and a sample repository of tissues
for future molecular analyses, providing a critical foundation for the nascent field of precision nutrition. The
expected outcome of this project is a comprehensive understanding of how diet influences cardiometabolic
health in an experimental genetic reference population, an essential first step to support future projects in
precision nutrition. The resulting data will have an important positive impact because it will provide a paradigm
shift toward precision nutrition by: a) identifying cardiometabolic phenotype...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10317331
- **Project number:** 1R01DK130333-01
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS A&M AGRILIFE RESEARCH
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID W. THREADGILL
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $673,151
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-07-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10317331

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10317331, Foundational studies for precision nutrition (1R01DK130333-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10317331. Licensed CC0.

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