Tracking diets via wastewater - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Official websites use.gov A.gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure.gov websites use HTTPS A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the.gov website.

Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. NIH is moving the launch of its new website to the fall to ensure the best possible experience for everyone who relies on our websites for health information, research, funding opportunities, and other resources.

What Happened

Poor diet promotes chronic disease and contributes to global illness, death, and healthcare costs. Effective measures to improve food access and security depend on timely information on dietary trends.

• Results from a test of the platform, called FoodSeq-FLOW, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on July 20, 2026.

• Together, these facilities serve more than 2 million people.

• NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS); National Science Foundation; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Schmidt Sciences; The Gerber Foundation; Springer Nature; Burroughs Wellcome.

Key Details

However, diet tracking typically relies on food diaries and surveys. These are only as reliable as participants’ memories.

• Dong M, Clerkin TJ, Jiang S, Ives N, Osborne OW, Kirtley M, Bauer AE, Anderson KY, Smith MD, Noble RT, David LA.

• Dietary DNA in municipal wastewater reveals signatures of wealth, immigration, and coastal proximity.

• Policymakers could use the data to target resources where they’re most needed.

Why It Matters

They can also be expensive and time-consuming. Rachel Noble at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dr.

• This could help public health agencies respond to nutritional shortages and track the effectiveness of interventions.

• The results suggest that this test could provide timely, adaptive diet tracking at a community scale and at low cost.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by National Institutes of Health (NIH) | (.gov) as more details emerge