Future Horizons:
10-yearhorizon
Links between diet and health are clarified
25-yearhorizon
Microbiome-testing becomes standard practice in nutrition planning
Scientists are now making progress in shaping the requirements of personalised nutrition. Gaining such insights involves monitoring individual responses to particular foods — including considerations of the age at which they are introduced and of the role of the individual’s gut microbiome. This has already shown potential to aid the development of a number of important health measures, such as tools for preventing the onset of obesity or food addiction.45
A key challenge is to understand the interactions between diet and the gut microbiome.46 Physiologists have learned that the gut and brain are strongly connected, interacting through links dubbed the “gut-brain axis”.47 Alterations to diet can impact the microbiome,48 with knock-on effects for multiple bodily systems including the immune system and even mental health.49 People’s individual gut flora differ significantly, so understanding the microbiome is key to personalising nutrition.50
Optimising nutrition - Anticipation Scores
The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:
- The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
- The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
- The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.
This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.
