ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to shed light on the economic benefits of precision nutrition and foods with nutritional and health benefits, with a focus on probiotics and prebiotics. The goal is to further develop nutrition economics to be used to emphasize and assess the relevance of nutritional benefits, to provide a framework for nutrition guidance, and to serve as a tool for designing new foods in a perspective of personalized nutrition advice for individuals, companies, and societal organizations. Lenoir-Wijnkoop and coworkers have been the pioneers of nutrition economic assessment. Nutrition economic evaluation has also been reported for probiotic intervention to prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea side effects among the elderly. A number of evidence-based recommendations on probiotic lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria exist, but the nutrition economic assessments are few. However, changing regulations are likely to consider the economic aspects of such foods and products in the future.
