OPINION: By food futurist, Tony Hunter
Many people appear to believe that the future of food will be determined by drugs like GLP-1’s. These drugs act by suppressing hunger and seemingly cause people to avoid “bad” foods and therefore lifestyle diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes.
But is this the only way, or even the best way, to avoid these lifestyle diseases? These drugs are not without their problems. Their side effects can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation. Some people even lose their enjoyment of particular foods or suffer a sudden negative taste perception of some foods. How long will people be prepared to suffer these problems? As knowledge of our individual microbiomes, genomics and personalised responses to food becomes more widespread will this offer a meaningful alternative to reliance on drugs? Powered by sensors and AI, diet and lifestyle personalisation may offer a better path to a healthier population.
A recent study in nature medicine www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03094-4 is a signal of the future. Researchers used a commercially available fitness tracker and a smartphone to continuously monitor the response to the medications digoxin and beta-blockers. They found that “the wearables were equivalent to standard tests often used in hospitals and clinical trials that require staff time and resources.” They used AI to analyse over 140 million heartrate datapoints in 53 individuals over 20 weeks, an impossible task for a human. This ability to analyse huge datasets and find patterns in the data is one of the huge advantages of AI. As the original paper says: “AI has demonstrated an ability to go beyond our current linear understanding of disease trajectory and interactions, with the ability to personalise diagnostic and therapeutic strategies…”.
This study is a signal pointing to the convergence of many health and medical technologies. The study clearly demonstrates the power of AI and commercial sensors to reliably and accurately monitor our health.
Will people want to use GLP-1’s or similar drugs when they can just get personalised nutritional advice and be as slim and healthy (or healthier) but without the side effects or the cost?
No one knows what the future will hold, but while diet drugs are featuring prominently in food industry thinking, they’re highly unlikely to be the sole basis for determining the future of food. Perhaps in the future, food will be the best medicine.
