In a new Frontiers Policy Labs publication, ANA’s CEO and Senior Director of Nutrition Programs & Advocacy call for licensure and reimbursement reform to close the gap between what patients can measure and who is legally allowed to help them make sense of it
CHICAGO, July 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A patient can now prick a finger, run two numbers, and get a real-time readout of their metabolic health. Whether they can find someone qualified to help them act on it depends almost entirely on which state they live in and which health insurance they carry.
That is the argument at the center of a new Policy Outlook published today in Frontiers Policy Labs by Corinne Bush, CEO of the American Nutrition Association (ANA), and Amy Smith, MS, CNS, ANA’s Senior Director of Nutrition Programs & Advocacy. The piece, “From Biomarker to Practice: Policy Pathways for the Glucose Ketone Index in Personalized Nutrition,” lands alongside a Frontiers in Science lead article introducing the glucose ketone index (GKI), a finger-prick biomarker researchers say could help track and manage the metabolic dysfunction behind cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and neurodegeneration, conditions projected to account for a growing share of the global disease burden in the decades ahead.
Bush and Smith’s message: personalized nutrition and metabolic science is moving faster than the system built to deliver it. Most U.S. medical schools still don’t require a clinical nutrition course. Fewer than 15% of practicing healthcare providers say they’re comfortable discussing nutrition with patients. Meanwhile, Certified Nutrition Specialists (CNS), credentialed nutrition professionals trained to interpret exactly this kind of metabolic data, are being underutilized in the healthcare system “When patients can measure their own metabolic state in real time but can’t access a qualified professional to help them interpret it, the system has failed at a basic level,” Bush and Smith write. “Fixing that failure is a policy choice, and the mechanisms to make it are already available.”
The Outlook calls for three moves, in this order:
- Clinical societies need to publish real guidance on how to use tools like the GKI
- States need to license nutrition professionals to practice medical nutrition therapy based on demonstrated competency instead of outdated statutes
- Insurers need to reimburse biomarker-informed nutrition care instead of treating it as optional.
Of the three, the authors single out reimbursement reform as the one with the most immediate reach. Payers already have a financial incentive to reduce chronic disease costs. Covering guideline-led biomarker testing without added administrative friction, they argue, is a change insurers could make now.
“This isn’t a call for something radical,” the Outlook states. “It’s a call for the field to demand what other parts of healthcare have already secured.”
The publication marks ANA’s most visible move yet into policy discourse beyond professional education, placing the organization’s advocacy for a credentialed personalized nutrition workforce alongside emerging clinical science on a global stage.
The Policy Outlook is live now at policylabs.frontiersin.org, part of a Frontiers in Science multimedia hub that also includes the full lead article, a companion piece for younger readers through Frontiers for Young Minds, and a Viewpoint from Dr. Evelyne Bischof of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society. A Deep-Dive webinar with invited experts follows on September 16, 2026.
About the American Nutrition Association The American Nutrition Association is a nonprofit organization building personalized nutrition into the foundation of healthcare. ANA administers the Certified Nutrition Specialist® (CNS®) credential, an NCCA-accredited certification, and drives 50-state advocacy, continuing education, and workforce development for nutrition professionals nationwide.
Media Contact: Christine Mortensen, Marketing Director, American Nutrition Association cmortensen@theana.org | theana.org
SOURCE American Nutrition Association