Lipidomics in nutrition and food research.

Lipids are a diverse class of metabolites that play several key roles in the maintenance of human health. Lipidomics, which focuses on the global study of molecular lipids in cells, tissues, and biofluids, has been advancing rapidly over the past decade. Recent developments in MS and computational methods enable the lipid analysis with high throughput, resolution, sensitivity, and ability for structural identification of several hundreds of lipids. In nutrition research, lipidomics can be effectively used to elucidate the interactions between diet, nutrients, and human metabolism. Lipidomics can also be applied to optimize the effects of food processing on the dietary value, and in the evaluation of food-related health effects.