Enhanced dietary monitoring using fecal genomics for childhood malnutrition interventions
Document Type
Artefact
Department
Community Health Sciences; Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Abstract
Ready-to-use therapeutic and supplementary foods (RUTF/RUSF) are a primary treatment for childhood malnutrition in Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programs. However, measuring intervention compliance is labor intensive and unreliable. We applied FoodSeq, a fecal genomic dietary assessment biomarker, in malnourished infants (3-15 months) from Matiari, Pakistan. FoodSeq identified a significant increase in the abundance of DNA from chickpea, a primary RUSF ingredient, during RUSF administration and captured region-specific complementary feeding practices, including age-inappropriate feeding practices such as wide-spread tea consumption. Our findings highlight the potential of dietary genomics as an empirical and scalable tool for compliance monitoring and dietary analysis in community-based malnutrition programs.
Publication (Name of Journal)
Food & Function
DOI
10.1039/d5fo02791h
Recommended Citation
Aqeel, A.,
Iqbal, N. T.,
Soomro, S. I.,
Ahmed, S.,
McDonald, T. K.,
Osborne, O.,
Jiang, S.,
Ives, N.,
Ahsan, K.,
Umrani, F.,
Barratt, M. J.,
Gordon, J. I.,
Ali, S. A.,
David, L. A.
(2026). Enhanced dietary monitoring using fecal genomics for childhood malnutrition interventions. Food & Function, 17(7), 3128-3137.
Available at:
https://ecommons.aku.edu/pakistan_fhs_mc_bbs/1105