Functional foods are foods or dietary ingredients that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition. A new legislation, known as the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation, defines the legal framework for such claims within the European Union. Any claim about the nutritional or physiological effects of a product must be scientifically demonstrated. In this study, we have focused on the exploration of metabolomics as a complementary profiling technology to establish monitoring/data analysis procedures of randomized nutritional trials. More specifically, a combined intake of soybean and grapefruit in a human intervention study was analyzed with respect to both pharmacological and physiological effects. Resulting multivariate models showed a diet-induced decrease of lactate, cholesterols and triglycerides. The most drastically elevated metabolite, myo-inositol, was found to accompany a marked reduction of triglyceride levels. Suggestively, this is due to the biotransformation of myo-inositol to phosphatidylinositol, which results in a decrease of available precursors to form triglycerides. Strong inter-subject ... … Read entire article »