Company launches mobile-enabled research engine for studying gene-diet interactions

GB HealthWatch

San Diego-based GB HealthWatch has launched a mobile app-powered research engine, the HealthWatch 360 Research Portal, for collecting diet, nutrition and health data. Designed by scientists, the platform uses mobile technology to allow for easy enrollment of large study cohorts while providing accurate and reliable dietary intake and nutritional data.

The solution is comprised of two components: a mobile app that allows for real-time and consistent tracking from study participants, and a web management portal that enables researchers to enroll and manage cohorts, as well as analyze data at any time point during a study.

HealthWatch 360 Research Portal simplifies the enroll participants with the ability to invite participants by email or batch upload their data. Also, it includes comprehensive analysis of more than 50 nutrients in the diet, ability to review food and nutrition reports, and download these reports in Excel format at any time point.

In other words, the HealthWatch 360 Research Portal was designed to replace traditional methods that involved self-reports and interviews with advanced technology, aimed to simplify the process and increase data quality.

“Scientists from academic and research institutes can easily setup a dietary monitoring project online through the HealthWatch 360 Research Portal,” Christina Troutner, MS, RDN, dietitian and nutrition scientist at GB HealthWatch, said in a statement. “They can choose to monitor 24-hr dietary intakes or monitor intakes over a week, month or even a year at a fraction of the cost of traditional 24-hr dietary recalls. This is a very attractive feature for longitudinal research studies.”

Nutrition is a vital component of precision health and preventive medicine, and the data collected via the HealthWatch 360 Research Portal will allow for gene-nutrition-health interactions to be quickly validated.