Precision nutrition requires precise tools to monitor dietary habits. Yet current dietary assessment instruments are subjective, limiting our understanding of the causal relationships between diet and health. Biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) hold promise to increase the objectivity and accuracy of dietary assessment, enabling adjustment for compliance and misreporting. Here, we update current concepts and provide a comprehensive overview of BFIs measured in urine and blood. We rank BFIs based on a four-level utility scale to guide selection and identify combinations of BFIs that specifically reflect complex food intakes, making them applicable as dietary instruments. We discuss the main challenges in biomarker development and illustrate key solutions for the application of BFIs in human studies, highlighting different strategies for selecting and combining BFIs to support specific study designs. Finally, we present a roadmap for BFI development and implementation to leverage current knowledge and enable precision in nutrition research.

精准营养需要精确的工具来监测饮食习惯。然而，当前的饮食评估工具是主观的，限制了我们对饮食与健康之间因果关系的理解。食物摄入生物标志物 (BFI) 有望提高饮食评估的客观性和准确性，从而能够调整依从性和误报。在这里，我们更新了当前的概念，并对尿液和血液中测量的 BFI 进行了全面概述。我们根据四级效用量表对 BFI 进行排名，以指导选择并确定专门反映复杂食物摄入量的 BFI 组合，使其适用于饮食工具。我们讨论了生物标志物开发中的主要挑战，并说明了 BFI 在人类研究中应用的关键解决方案，重点介绍了选择和组合 BFI 以支持特定研究设计的不同策略。最后，我们提出了 BFI 开发和实施的路线图，以利用现有知识并实现营养研究的精确性。