Scientists uncover new method to monitor diet through stool samples

Developed by research teams at the Medical University of Graz, Austria and the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Metagenomic Estimation of Dietary Intake, or MEDI, looks at the DNA in stool samples to estimate what foods a person has consumed and in what quantity, with high levels of accuracy.

Sean Gibbons, associate professor at the Institute for Systems Biology and co-author of the research, says MEDI will allow researchers to track the diets of participants in any study that has collected fecal metagenomic data.

“This should expand the inclusion of diet as a variable in many studies, and it will allow people to go back to prior studies…