Collaboration project with TIFN
It is time for a more-personalised approach
“Nutrition sciences have always taken a rather generic approach, investigating health effects in large groups of people. However, in order to make new steps forward we should shift towards a more personalized approach".
Illustrative is a recently finished TiFN project, Microbiota, energy balance and metabolism (2011-2015), from which we concluded that the gastrointestinal microbiota does not influence human metabolism in all circumstances or all persons. The administration of antibiotics to human volunteers for one week ‘switched off’ the microbiota, but did not result in any observable short or long-term metabolic effects. On the other hand, we demonstrated that direct administration of shortchain-fatty acids (SCFA) to the large intestine has a pronounced effect on fat oxidation and hormones.
Bacteria form SCFA when they ferment indigestible food compounds.
After completion of the project, there were still two questions: first, whether the impact of microbiota on human metabolism might vary in healthy volunteers and subjects with an increased risk for chronic metabolic diseases; and, second: how do these bacteria interact with dietary components? For example, after consumption of large amounts of complex carbohydrates, fermentation of dietary fibres by the microbiota - that takes place in the distal, rather than the proximal part of the large intestine - might exert different health effects.
Intriguing questions
In order to answer such intriguing questions we need to compare subgroups, and combine state-of the-art technology for measuring individual gut and metabolic health. TiFN is well-equipped for such a personalised approach, with scientists from multiple
disciplines - nutrition sciences, microbiology, gastrointestinal physiology, systems biology and modelling - working in multi-disciplinary research.
In the beginning of 2017 we began, as part of the latest TiFN research portfolio, a project focused on the personalised approach: Unravelling the biology behind perceivable consumer benefits,also called Glucose mapping. The research, involving four different research partners, aims to reveal determinants of blood-glucose control, and the effects of changing blood levels on cardio metabolic risk and mental performance and wellbeing. Disturbed blood glucose control seems to be more and more common in western societies - probably due to diet and lifestyle factors - and is a risk factor for diabetes and
cardiovascular diseases. Within the context of this large project we will perform a personalized dietary intervention study, The PERSON study. We have data available from earlier, large European dietary-intervention studies on macronutrients and metabolic health. Based on these data we designed a personalised dietary intervention, targeted at people with with either more pronounced insulin resistance in the liver or more pronounced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle. In this way we hope to achieve the optimal improvement in insulin resistance in response to macronutrient manipulation of the diet in these metabolic phenotypes. We will investigate the added value of this ‘tailor-made’ intervention in normalising glucose control, and subsequently test whether we can develop more-personalised nutrition advice for people in real-life situations.
Proof-of-concept
I hope, and expect, the project will provide a proof-of-concept for a more-personalised approach in nutrition. This will open up opportunities for product developments and targeted intervention strategies in the prevention of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Generating non-competitive knowledge, with industrial relevance is what makes TiFN research so satisfying for me.”
Prof. Ellen Blaak, Professor of the Physiology of Fat Metabolism at Maastricht University, and project leader at TiFN
Special thanks to TIFN
TiFN is a public private partnership for interdisciplinary ground-breaking research in food and nutrition. TiFN is a unique platform where industry and academia converge and collaborate to create breakthrough innovations in food and nutrition. TiFN enables the food industry to tackle major societal issues and generate competitive advantage.
https://www.tifn.nl/