{"id":106852,"date":"2025-09-01T12:29:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T12:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/106852\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T12:29:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T12:29:05","slug":"what-exactly-are-you-eating-inside-the-nutritional-dark-matter-in-your-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/106852\/","title":{"rendered":"What Exactly Are You Eating? Inside The Nutritional \u2018Dark Matter\u2019 In Your Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Processed<\/p>\n

(Image credit \u00a9 Sergiy Romanyuk
\n| Dreamstime.com)<\/p>\n

In A Nutshell<\/p>\n

Most of food chemistry is still unknown: Beyond calories and nutrients, our diet contains 26,000+ compounds \u2014 most unstudied \u201cnutritional dark matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hidden compounds may drive health or harm: Molecules like TMAO (from red meat\/eggs) raise heart risk, while garlic can block its production; gut microbes turn fruit compounds into health-boosting urolithins.<\/p>\n

Food affects genes and generations: Diet can switch genes on\/off through epigenetics, shaping disease risk even in children of malnourished mothers.<\/p>\n

Foodomics is mapping the \u2018food universe\u2019: Projects like the Foodome are cataloguing 130,000+ food molecules to uncover how diet truly impacts health and disease.<\/p>\n

When scientists cracked the human genome in 2003<\/a> \u2013 sequencing the entire genetic code of a human being \u2013 many expected it would unlock the secrets of disease. But genetics<\/a> explained only about 10% of the risk. The other 90% lies in the environment \u2013 and diet plays a huge part.<\/p>\n

Worldwide, poor diet is linked<\/a> to around one in five deaths among adults aged 25 years or older. In Europe, it accounts for nearly half<\/a> of all cardiovascular deaths. But despite decades of advice about cutting fat, salt or sugar, obesity and diet-related illness have continued to rise<\/a>. Clearly, something is missing<\/a> from the way we think about food.<\/p>\n

For years, nutrition<\/a> has often been framed in fairly simple terms: food as fuel and nutrients as the body\u2019s building blocks. Proteins<\/a>, carbohydrates<\/a>, fats and vitamins \u2013 about 150 known chemicals<\/a> in total \u2013 have dominated the picture. But scientists now estimate our diet actually delivers more than 26,000<\/a> compounds, with most of them still uncharted.<\/p>\n

Here is where astronomy<\/a> provides a useful comparison. Astronomers know that dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe<\/a>. It doesn\u2019t emit or reflect light, and so it cannot be seen directly but its gravitational effects reveal that it must exist.<\/p>\n

Nutrition science faces something similar. The vast majority of chemicals in food<\/a> are invisible to us in terms of research. We consume them every day, but we have little idea what they do.<\/p>\n

Some experts refer to these unknown molecules as \u201cnutritional dark matter.\u201d<\/a> It\u2019s a reminder that just as the cosmos is filled with hidden forces, our diet is packed with hidden chemistry.<\/p>\n

When researchers analyze disease, they look at a vast array of foods, although any association often cannot be matched to known molecules. This is the dark matter of nutrition \u2013 the compounds we ingest daily but haven\u2019t been mapped or studied. Some may encourage health, but others may increase the risk of disease. The challenge is finding out which do what.<\/p>\n

\"MeatIs nutritional \u201cdark matter\u201d lurking in the food we eat? (Photo by Abramov Michael on Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Foodomics<\/p>\n

The field of foodomics<\/a> aims to do exactly that. It brings together genomics (the role of genes), proteomics (proteins), metabolomics (cell activity) and nutrigenomics (the interaction of genes and diet).<\/p>\n

These approaches are starting to reveal how diet interacts with the body in ways far beyond calories and vitamins.<\/p>\n

Take the Mediterranean diet<\/a> (filled with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil and fish, with limited red meat and sweets), for example, which is known to reduce<\/a> the risk of heart disease.<\/p>\n

But why does it work? One clue lies in a molecule called TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide)<\/a>, produced when gut bacteria metabolize compounds in red meat and eggs. High levels of TMAO increase the risk of heart disease. But garlic<\/a>, for example, contains substances that block its production. This is one example of how diet can tip the balance between health and harm.<\/p>\n

Gut bacteria<\/a> also play a major role. When compounds reach the colon, microbes transform them into new chemicals that can affect inflammation, immunity and metabolism.<\/p>\n

For example, ellagic acid<\/a> \u2013 found in various fruits and nuts \u2013 is converted by gut bacteria into urolithins<\/a>. These are a group of natural compounds that help keep our mitochondria (the body\u2019s energy factories) healthy.<\/p>\n

This shows how food is a complex web of interacting chemicals. One compound can influence many biological mechanisms, which in turn can affect many others. Diet can even switch genes on or off through epigenetics<\/a> \u2013 changes in gene activity that don\u2019t alter DNA itself.<\/p>\n

History has provided stark examples of this. For example, children born to mothers who endured famine in the Netherlands during the Second World War<\/a> were more likely<\/a> to develop heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and schizophrenia later in life. Decades on, scientists found their gene activity had been altered by what their mothers ate \u2013 or didn\u2019t eat \u2013 while pregnant.<\/p>\n

Mapping The Food Universe<\/p>\n

Projects such as the Foodome Project<\/a> are now attempting to catalogue this hidden chemical universe. More than 130,000 molecules<\/a> have already been listed, linking food compounds to human proteins, gut microbes and disease processes. The aim is to build an atlas of how diet interacts with the body, and to pinpoint which molecules really matter for health.<\/p>\n

The hope is that by understanding nutritional dark matter<\/a>, we can answer questions that have long frustrated nutrition science. Why do certain diets work for some people but not others? Why do foods sometimes prevent, and sometimes promote, disease? Which food molecules could be harnessed to develop new drugs, or new foods?<\/p>\n

We are still at the beginning. But the message is clear \u2013 the food on our plate<\/a> is not just calories<\/a> and nutrients, but a vast chemical landscape we are only starting to chart. Just as mapping cosmic dark matter is transforming our view of the universe, uncovering nutritional dark matter could transform how we eat, how we treat disease and how we understand health itself.<\/p>\n

David Benton<\/a>, Professor Emeritus (Human & Health Sciences), Medicine Health and Life Science, Swansea University<\/a>. He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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