NUTBIO-DIAB · Nutritional biomarkers to advance understanding of association between diet and type 2 diabetes

Nutritional biomarkers to advance understanding of association between diet and type 2 diabetes

Diet and nutrition are crucial for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, but measurement error in self-report dietary assessment has posed a major challenge in the research on the links between dietary factors and health outcomes. Compared to the self-reported data that is traditionally used for dietary assessment, blood measures that reflect dietary intake (nutritional biomarkers) can provide an objective measurement of nutritional status and dietary intake. The systematic use of nutritional biomarkers has the potential to meaningfully advance the scientific understanding of the link between dietary factors and type 2 diabetes. This is important for the public and society at both the individual and collective level, given the translational value of diet and nutrition research to people’s daily life, affecting individuals’ dietary choice and long-term health status. For type 2 diabetes this is critical, as the global burden of this condition remains a major public health challenge, with no sign of the slowing down of the rise in its prevalence worldwide. This project had the related aims (1) to train and upskill the fellowship recipient to become a mature/independent researcher and be a future leader in the field of nutritional epidemiology, and (2) to do so, by working specifically with the unprecedented resource of nutritional biomarkers that has been generated within the framework of the EU FP6 funded EPIC-InterAct study across 8 European countries to improve the precision of dietary assessment for investigating the relationship between dietary factors and diabetes risk. The use of biomarkers also opens the possibility to investigate causal associations using genetic-based approaches. Using the newly measured data of the biomarkers plasma vitamin C, several plasma carotenoids and vitamin D metabolites in the EPIC-InterAct study, substantial progress has been made to achieve the project goals: • Data preparation included detailed quality control procedures for the measured biomarkers, and the research fellow led a set of recommendations on the appropriate use of these data that will enable optimal analysis by other researchers. • The research fellow completed statistical analyses; shared and discussed the results with scientific working groups across the InterAct consortium; presented the emerging findings from this project at scientific meetings; and several draft manuscripts are in progress. • The research fellow received high level training in nutritional epidemiology and genetic epidemiology. The knowledge generated from the project will be of importance to advance the understanding of the relationship between diet, nutritional biomarkers and diabetes risk, particularly in European populations.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз