Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Identification and application of biomarkers of food intake
Coordinator
Identify the factors influencing adherence to the Mediterranean diet with attention to children and adolescents in Italy (including consumer needs and preferences, local determinants/drivers of food choices in connection with Spoke 1).
Identify key sociodemographic and psychosocial factors associated with adherence to the Mediterranean diet in adults and free-living older adults throughout Italy, and also detecting individual-level and environmental barriers that may affect this age group engaging in consistent healthful dietary habits in connection with Spoke 1 (e.g., social isolation, low-income, neighbourhoods with high rates of poverty, poor nutrition literacy).
Definition of the protocols for the acquisition of data and metadata relating to biomarkers of eating habits (identification of the multi-omic protocols of choice for the measurement of food biomarkers, classification of biomarkers according to specific links with diet-related risk factors, definition of criteria for the use of biomarkers for applications in interventions of diet improvement).
Investigations on selected cohorts for the validation of biomarkers in a real-life and life-long environment (biomarkers of adherence to dietary recommendations for children, biomarkers of adherence to dietary recommendations for the elderly, biomarkers of adherence to diet recommendations for pregnant women).
Organisation of a multicentre infrastructure for the collection of samples and data dedicated to the identification and validation of food biomarkers (organisation of a multicentre infrastructure for collection of biological samples and identification standards, organisation of a multicentre and multisectoral infrastructure for data analysis, organisation of a clinical multicentre infrastructure for population recruitment and relationships with ethics committees).
Identification of variables related to Mediterranean diet adherence, including socio-economic and cultural factors, lifestyle, nutrition knowledge, consumer preferences, etc. (M12)
Establishment of cohorts of older adults (aged ≥65 years) to expandknowledge on major determinants/drivers (either favoring factors or barriers) of healthy eating and to collect biospecimens for future investigations on the contribution of diet to successful aging (M30)
Protocols and schemes for the measurement of biomarkers based on multi-omics platforms (M12)
Classifications of dietary patterns based on biomarkers discovery, and associations with possible diet-related health disorders (M24)
Agreements among different national recruitment centres to be involved in a dedicated infrastructure for biobank, data storage and recruitment of healthy subjects for screening of population (M12)
Guidelines to prepare dossiers for ethical committees’ applications (M12)
Disorder-specific dietary intervention criteria based on predictive tools based on biomarkers patterns (M36)
Fact sheets reporting the prevalence of diet-related disorders based on biomarkers among different population groups (M36)
With a focus on promoting food and nutrition with a life-course approach and strengthen the effectiveness of the healthy and sustainable Mediterranean Diet, it is necessary to build a well-defined map of the national population nutritional status classified by specific phenotypes, including metabotypes and microbiome profiles. The insights already available about the relationship between these phenotypic profiles and the onset and progression of non-communicable diseases need to be implemented according to the specific information retrieved on different target populations (i.e., children, adolescents, elderly). Food questionnaires and diaries are commonly used to measure dietary intake in population-based studies. Biomarkers, however, may provide more reliable intake measures than self-reported data. In this perspective it is mandatory to develop biomarkers to validate dietary data. Beside food intake biomarkers, relationship between diet and human health/disease status requires equally strong metabolic and microbiome related biomarkers, at the individual and population levels, to implement tailored nutritional interventions.
The workplan will include activities which can be shared and exploited by other Spokes/WPs such as (i) the definition of the protocols for the acquisition of data and metadata relating to biomarkers of eating habits, including ethical committee approvals; (ii) the identification of multi-omic protocols of choice for the measurement of food biomarkers; (iii) the classification of biomarkers according to specific links with diet-related risk factors; (iv) the definition of criteria for the use of biomarkers for applications in interventions of diet improvement (M1-12). Furthermore, a multicentre infrastructure will be designed for the collection of biological samples and meta- and measurement-data dedicated to the identification and validation of food biomarkers and standards. (M6-24)
Finally, investigations on cohorts available in ONFOODS relevant recruitment centers will be carried out for the validation of biomarkers in a real-life and lifelong environment. (M18-36)
The project expected results will include: (1) a set of biomarkers, based on multi-omics platforms, associated with possible diet related health disorders; (2) improved and sustainable dietary patterns across life stages in order to prevent non- communicable diseases, based on classification tools making use of metadata fingerprinting emerging from metabolomics and microbiome metagenomics; (3) guidelines based on measurable biomarkers to increase awareness of consumer towards sustainable diets.
