The University of Granada will coordinate the European H2020 project "Smart Technologies for personAlised Nutrition and Consumer Engagement" (Stance4Health), a landmark initiative that was recently approved for €6.5 million in funding by the European Commission. The project consortium comprises 19 partner institutions from eight European countries (Spain, Germany, Denmark, Romania, Italy, Greece, Belgium and the UK), whose primary goal is to develop a comprehensive Smart Personalized Nutrition (SPN) service using mobile technology.
The project will be carried out within the framework of the H2020 Work Programme No. 8 on Health, Demographic Change and Wellbeing, with approximately one million euro of the total budget going directly to the University of Granada.
The Stance4Health project is highly innovative within the field of nutrition for three key reasons: i) it will employ a comprehensive approach to study the interactions between diet, the intestines, and gut flora, taking into account how the food consumed by an individual has been prepared and cooked; ii) it will make use of new, revolutionary nutrition software (i-Diet) which integrates information regarding diet and metabolic networks, offering practical advice on factors such as diet choices and cooking methods; iii) it will give rise to a new Smart Personalized Nutrition service that incorporates a sophisticated mobile application and a wearable device (to track changes in body composition), as well an in vitro diagnostics tool (to track changes in gut flora activity).
Moreover, Stance4Health will analyze how thermal processing and cooking methods affect gut flora — factors which have not yet been comprehensively assessed within this sphere. The project will also place special emphasis on the development of cereal by-products for individuals who are overweight or suffer from celiac disease or allergies. These new tools and services have the potential to directly affect the lives of over 67 million adults and 8 million children in Europe by 2022.
The project will be coordinated by José ángel Rufián Henares from the University of Granada's Department of Nutrition and Food Science.
The synergy of nutrition and traditional medicine for holistic health and wellbeing