[Complexity of food and implications for treatments]

. Complexity of food and implications for treatments. There is growing evidence highlighting the importance of dietary quality in disease prevention, particularly in the context of a global surge in early-onset cancers. Food chemicals can regulate the activity of human and microbial proteins; however, our knowledge of these substances and their sites of action is very limited, as is our understanding of the vast array of chemicals with health implications. There are more than 139,000 molecules in food, that are termed 'nutrition dark matter' (NDM), and which have immense, largely untapped therapeutic potential. Around 2,000 food molecules are already used as drugs, highlighting the pharmaceutical relevance of food chemicals. Mapping NDM could transform dietary science and speed up drug discovery.