Nutrigenomics is the study of the influence of food constituents on gene expression. When we look back at the decade since the publication of the genome, several challenging questions come to mind. Is personalised nutrition ever going to dominate public health nutrition? Have we exaggerated the role that nutrigenomics may play in preventive nutrition? Has research into nutrigenomics diverted resources away from other research areas?

While the link between food and health has long been established, the greatest irony is that we still do not have an accurate method of measuring daily food intake in humans. This is fundamental to nutritional epidemiology. Nutritional epidemiology and nutrigenomics are at the two ends of the nutritional science spectrum.

Future innovations and discoveries between diet and health will only emerge if multidisciplinary approaches are encouraged and developed. The food industry of the future has a significant role in acting as a broker in this endeavour.

Prof Jeya Henry is director of the Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University.