GutSelf: Inter‐Individual Variability in the Processing of Dietary Compounds by the Human Gastrointestinal Tract

Nutritional research is currently entering the field of personalised nutrition, to a large extent driven by major technological breakthroughs in analytical sciences and biocomputing. An efficient launching of the personalised approach depends on the ability of researchers to comprehensively monitor and characterise inter‐individual variability in the activity of the human gastrointestinal tract. This information is currently not available in such a form. This review therefore aims at identifying and discussing published data providing evidence on inter‐individual variability in the processing of the major nutrients, i.e. protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, along the gastrointestinal tract, including oral processing, intestinal digestion and absorption. Although inter‐individual variability was not a primary endpoint of most studies identified, a significant number of publications provides a wealth of information on this topic for each category of nutrients. This knowledge remains, however, fragmented and understanding the clinical relevance of most of the inter‐individual responses to food ingestion described in this review remains unclear. In that regard, this review has identified a gap and sets the base for future research addressing the issue of the inter‐individual variability in the response of the human organism to the ingestion of foods.