Metabotypes based on dietary patterns associated to health brain
ACRONYM
FOOD4BRAIN
CALL & REFERENCE
State R+D+I Program Oriented to the Challenges of Society, PID2020-114921RB-C21
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR (SPAIN)
COORDINATION
Project coordinated by C. Andrés-Lacueva
DESCRIPTION
Novel nutritional research is focusing in the concept of metabolomic phenotypes or metabotypes because metabotypes are at a mid-level between population and individuals and hold the promise to make personalized nutrition accessible to public health. We will focus our research on the assessment the biological determinants predictive of maintenance of brain health. Mediterranean diet (MD) is a healthy dietary pattern associated with reduced risk for cognitive impairment and successful brain health maintenance. Specific modulation of environmental(i) and lifestyle(ii) factors, as well as host(iii) and gut microbiota metabolic activity (iv) metabolic pathways might modulate the effects of diet on cognitive function and brain health. We will identify subjects with increased brain health risk factors in a prospective, population-based study including >4,500 subjects (The Barcelona BrainHealth Initiative, Guttmann Institute, CoPI: Álvaro Pascual Leone).
The overall aim is to explore in depth how human exposome [characterized by metabolomics biomarkers of (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv), subproject 1, UB] interacts with dietary patterns, and measures of cognitive function and brain health to develop metabotypes that may guide personalized dietary interventions designed for healthy aging and brain health maintenance. The project also aims to promote the next generation of scientists through recruitment, training, mobility and career development of Early Career Scientists in the rapidly developing and integrated areas of food and health.
The project will take advantage of complementary and multidisciplinary competences, recently established existing dietary intervention randomized trials and longitudinal cohort resources, in combination with state-of-the-art experimental models, clinical approaches and comprehensive Human Exposome biomarkers to accelerate fundamental understanding towards translation into new Dietary Patterns and Food composition concepts for improving public health and population wellbeing.
As case-study we will establish an in-depth characterization of host and microbial tryptophan metabolites following an acute intake of tryptophan-rich foods and link those data with dietary information from dietary questionnaires and a kinetic study to build top-down system models of integrated metabolomic phenotypes. These metabotypes will be interrogated with respect to outcome (cognitive function and brain health maintenance) to obtain predictive models and mechanistic insight into predisposing factors leading to brain health.