Nutritional Biomarkers: Implication for Health

Dear Colleagues,

Nutritional biomarkers have gained prominence in recent years as a highly useful tool in health promotion. Adequate nutritional status is a crucial factor in the prevention and progression of diseases, and its assessment is essential to understanding the relationship between diet, health, and disease. Nutritional biomarkers play a central role in providing objective measures that reflect nutrient intake, nutritional status, and the metabolic effects of diets. These biomarkers can include concentrations of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, metabolites, or specific proteins in blood, urine, or other biological tissues. Their application has revolutionized nutritional assessment by allowing for greater objectivity and sensitivity in the identification of nutritional deficiencies or excesses, often before the appearance of clinical signs. In the context of precision nutrition, biomarkers are essential to individualizing nutritional interventions based on individual characteristics, metabolism, and lifestyle. This integrative approach allows for the optimization of the physiological response to nutrients, promotion of health, and prevention of the development of chronic non-communicable diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases) in a personalized way. Thus, the use of nutritional biomarkers in personalized nutritional intervention represents a strategic tool for health promotion, as it allows for the identification of risks, monitoring of interventions, and support of clinical and public health decisions with greater precision and impact.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the latest advances in the discovery, validation, and application of nutritional biomarkers across diverse populations and health contexts. We welcome original research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses that explore the role of nutritional biomarkers in the following areas:

• Assessing dietary intake and nutrient status;
• Predicting the risk and progression of chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or cancer);
• Understanding gene–diet interactions and individual variability in nutritional responses;
• Monitoring responses to dietary interventions and public health strategies;
• Developing biomarkers for use in clinical nutrition, epidemiology, and personalized nutrition approaches.

In this Special Issue, we aim to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and stimulate translational research that bridges basic nutritional science with clinical and public health applications. By advancing the science of nutritional biomarkers, we can pave the way for more effective strategies to prevent and manage diet-related diseases, ultimately contributing to better health outcomes worldwide.

Dr. Ana Valente
Prof. Dr. Manuel Bicho
Guest Editors

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