Scientists at the Nestle study food synthesizer

Nestle earned billions of dollars serving doses of caffeine with Nespresso coffeemakers. Now, its scientists want to provide vitamins and minerals more necessary for people from all over the world in a similar fashion.
The Nestle Institute of Health Sciences (NIHS), the research arm of major food company in the world, is developing tools to analyze and measure levels of dozens of essential nutrients. The goal is to offer personalized supplements according to the needs of each individual, possibly by means of an appliance is not very different from the Nespresso machines-but you can still take many years to develop it.
The program, code-named "iron man", is part of the initiatives of the Switzerland company to treat metabolic disorders, gastrointestinal and brain with new foods and drinks. The NIHS, more than 110 scientists are working on projects involving of molecular biomarkers of obesity to the discovery of connections between the vitamin and mineral deficiency and diseases such as diabetes, cancer or cardiovascular disease.
"The ' iron man ' is an analysis of what is missing in our diet and a custom product that will help to compensate for this difference," said Ed Baetge, NIHS Director, during a lunch in the cafeteria of the Federal Institute of technology Lausanne, Switzerland, where are the researchers of Nestlé. "Before, the food was just food. Now we're going in a new direction ".
Any product derived from the "iron man" would be more effective than the multivitamin supplements sold in pharmacies, which are not adjusted to specific needs, Baetge said. In December, the journal "Annals of Internal Medicine published an editorial saying that these supplements" do not provide a clear benefit and may even be harmful ".
The Nestlé Health Science for nutritional products for various diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and genetic disorders that affect how the body processes food. The unit is headed by Luis Cantarell, who also heads the Nestlé nutrition segment, $ 11 billion, and worked in the marketing of coffee previously in his career.
The "iron man", which began at the end of last year and now involves 15 scientists, has a broader mission than the current offerings of Nestle's medical nutrition.
Nestlé 's research on personalized nutrition could lead to "business proposals that we couldn't imagine today," said Cantarell. He recognizes, however, that the era of completely custom foods is much further than the five to ten years that the researchers of Nestlé predict-a skepticism that is shared, and amplified by some outside scientists.
"I don't think the personalized nutrition reaches the level of the individuals," said Ian Macdonald, Director of the school of Biosciences at the University of Nottingham. "If they want a high-tech solution to the problem, it won't work."
Create this brand is expensive-between $ 50 and $ 200 for each measured nutrient, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota, then a complete profile would cost more than $ 1,000.