Therapeutic Dynamics of Tannin Interaction and Significance in Precision Medicine

Personalized medicine is a targeted therapy that aims to provide people suffering from complex illnesses with tailored-made healthcare. Taking this into consideration, foods with diverse bioactive compounds have recently gained widespread scientific interest as alternatives to modern drugs for developing therapeutic agents against human diseases. Tannins are an important group of polyphenol compounds in foods that have both beneficial and anti-nutritional effects. As an anti-nutrient, they can reduce element bioavailability, and protein absorption, and inhibit enzymatic actions during metabolism. If tannin-rich foods are consumed in sufficient quantities and at the appropriate time, they may act similarly to natural drugs that ameliorate a range of metabolic disorders. Thus, the types of tannin-rich foods and the timing of consumption before or after meals should be considered for maximum physiological importance in maintaining human health. In this chapter, we compiled the different types of tannins and their food sources, as well as their beneficial and antinutrient effects on human health.

Keywords: Micronutrients, Macronutrients, Personalized medicine (PM), Polyphenols, Tannins, Tannins-rich foods.