A recent study highlights the potential of fermented foods to deliver personalized nutrition tailored to India’s diverse population, revealing that bioactive peptides in these foods offer varied health benefits across different groups.
Conducted by the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, the research underscores the health benefits of traditional fermented foods like yogurt, idli, miso, natto, kimchi, and fermented fish. These foods are rich in bioactive peptides—short protein fragments of 2 to 20 amino acids—that regulate critical functions such as blood pressure, blood sugar, immunity, and inflammation.
Published in the journal Food Chemistry (2025), the study led by Prof. Ashis K. Mukherjee, Director of IASST, along with Dr. Maloyjo Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Dr. Asis Bala, and Dr. Mojibr Khan, explains that these peptides, formed during fermentation, interact with biomolecules through electrostatic forces, hydrogen bonding, and hydrophobic interactions. This enables them to exert antimicrobial, antihypertensive, antioxidant, and immune-modulatory effects, influencing cardiac function, immune response, and metabolic health.
The study notes that the effectiveness and bioavailability of these peptides vary across populations due to factors like genetic polymorphisms, gut microbiota composition, dietary habits, and health conditions. For instance, gene variants in ACE or IL-6 can influence how individuals respond to these peptides, highlighting the need for precision nutrition tailored to India’s diverse population.
The research also addresses challenges such as variability in fermentation methods, peptide stability, and interactions with gut microbiota. It advocates the integration of traditional fermented foods into public health initiatives and calls for omics-based research, which uses high-throughput technologies to analyze large sets of molecules, to advance innovation in rural food systems. Such efforts could position India as a global leader in personalized nutrition, the study suggests.