Cook2Health supports healthier eating with a personalised coaching system that uses connected home cooking appliances to record and analyse what a person eats, and inform them about their nutritional intake. To get this innovation into the market, the project is running a clinical test of the system’s long-term health benefits.

Unhealthy dietary habits are a major factor contributing to a worldwide increase in chronic conditions. With a commitment to healthy and tasty cooking, Groupe SEB in 2013 carried out a three-month qualitative study to test the impact of connected cooking appliances on dietary habits and health parameters. The promising results of that study encouraged creation of the Cook2Health partnership.

Team

Groupe SEB, a leader in small household appliances, makes connected cooking devices. Université Grenoble Alpes, France, has interests in nutrition, metabolism and 4P medicine (predictive, personalised, preventive, participatory). Aberystwyth University, UK, a diet and health specialist, focuses on biomarkers to measure diet. Universitat of Barcelona, Spain, has expertise in biomarkers and dietary assessment.

The project

Cook2Health is a randomised control clinical trial set up to demonstrate the health benefits of a personalised dietary coaching solution. The solution produces a nutritional profile that the participant can use to track and improve their diet.

After a validation mockup phase with 20 volunteers, the on-going trial runs for a full year – unusual in the nutrition domain, where clinical tests usually last from one to three months. During that year, Cook2Health will assess adherence and health of 160 volunteers, recruited in France and the UK. Participants are routinely tested for more than 30 health parameters, including body composition, blood tests, gut microbiota measures, urinary biomarkers, physical activity data, etc.

Some of the testing will be done with a diagnostic tool that measures urinary biomarkers and is being developed specifically for the Cook2Health project. This new tool will support the sales of a urinary kit produced by Aberystwyth.

Impact

• Cook2Health will have the immediate, significant impact of accelerating market access for a product that supports people in achieving better health.
• Cook2Health will drive the evolution of personalised health empowerment.
• The long-term social contribution would be to modify dietary habits of many people, thereby easing their lives, decreasing chronic disease and fostering healthier senior years.

Why this is an EIT Health project

Cook2Health is aligned with the EIT Health focus areas of “Behavioural Change” and, indirectly, “Bringing Care Home”. It shares EIT Health values because it:

• uses new technologies to improve health;
• empowers citizens to take charge of their own health;
• enables personalised, preventive measures in a person’s home.