www.ucd.ie/foodandhealth

Nutrition Biomarkers and Health

Prof Lorraine Brennan

School of Agriculture & Food Science

UCD Conway Institute

UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

Outline

Personalised Nutrition

Challenge

• What did you eat yesterday?

• What was the portion size?

• Can you describe your habitual diet?

The need for Dietary Biomarkers

Limitations:

• Measurements over short periods of time may be

unrepresentative

• Recall of eating behaviour can be difficult

• Errors in reporting intakes

• Recording process alters dietary habits

• Difficult to validate

Food diaries, FFQ, 24 hr recalls

Metabolomics is the study of metabolites present in biological

samples

aims to study alterations in metabolism and metabolic

pathways under different conditions

aims to profile all of the metabolites present in the samples:

the metabolome.

metabolites represent biological end points and are now

implicated in the development of a number of human

diseases

What is metabolomics?

Introduction to metabolomics

Metabolomics: large amount of metabolites, multivariate

data analysis

NMR

LC-MS

GC-MS

Traditional metabolic studies: targeted specific pathways

univariate statistics

1. Biomarkers of Dietary Intake

Metabolomics in nutrition

Strategies for biomarker discovery

Acute intervention with specific foods

metabolomics

Biomarker Identification

Biomarker assessment in cohort

Prior knowledge: database

Examples of biomarkers

Heinzman et al AJCN 2010

Examples of biomarkers

Our recent discoveries

Biomarkers of

- Citrus fruit

- Red meat

- White meat

- Dairy intake

- SSB

Examples of on-going work:

Biomarkers of

- Legumes

- Carrots

- Fruit (apples)

- Cake

- Dietary Fat

- …….

Markers

Health/

Disease Risk

Factors

Biomarkers reflective of dietary

intake

Compliance

Dietary Intake

Link with Quantified Self?

Precision Medicine

Precision Nutrition

Metabolomics based biomarkers

image courtesy of Metabolon

Is PN advice more effective than conventional healthy eating

guidelines?

Develop a method for delivery of PN remotely

220

220

220

22022

0

220

220

1. University College Dublin (Ireland)

2. Maastricht University (The Netherlands)

3. University of Navarra (Spain)

4. University of Reading (UK)

5. National Food and Nutrition Institute Warsaw

(Poland)

6. Harokopio University Athens (Athens)

7. Technische Universitaet Muenchen

(Germany)

Coordinated by Newcastle

University

Courtesy John Mathers, UNew

Proof of Principle Study

Level 0 Level 1 PN Level 2 PN Level 3 PN

• Generic

healthy eating

guidelines

• Dietary intake• Dietary intake

• Phenotype

• Dietary intake

• Phenotype

• Genotype

Generic Personalised

Baseline Month 3 Month 6Month 2Month 1

Dietary data

Physical activity

Blood sample

DNA sample

Collection of dietary data

Collection of Phenotypic Data

Vitas

Metabolite measurements on DBS

Examples

Fatty acids (%) Myristic acid C14:0

Pentadecyclic acid C15:0 Palmitic acid C16:0 Stearic acid C18:0

cisVaccenic acid C18:1 cis Oleic acid C18:1

Total saturated fat* Omega 3 index**

Linoleic acid C18:2 n6 Arachidonic acid C20:4 n6

Carotenoids (µM)

aCaroten bCaroten

bCryptoxanthin Lutein

Lycopene Zeaxanthin

Collection of genetic data

• Health and lifestyle

questionnaires

• Physical activity

Collection of Data

Algorithms for Decision Trees

(Females <88 cm; Males <102cm)

< 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8 < 5 5 to 8 >8

Note:

* Glucose and Cholesterol are mesured from blood and expressed in mmol units

Cholesterol: Low <5 ; Normal 5 to 8; High >8 mmol

Glucose: Low <6.1 ; Normal 6.1 to 7.0 ; High >7.0

Sedentary Lightly Active Active

Check Glucose levels? Check Glucose levels? Check Glucose levels?

FTO (rs9939609)

Body weight

Check Physical Activity level?

Carriers of the Risk Variant (AA or TA)

Check BMI

Normal Waist Circumference

Underweight (BMI <18.5 kg.m2)

>7.0

Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels?

<6.1 6.1 to 7.0 >7.0 <6.1 6.1 to 7.0 >7.0 <6.1 6.1 to 7.0

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

9

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

0

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

1

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

2

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

3

Mes

sage

No

3.1

.01

4

Check cholesterol levels? Check cholesterol levels?

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

1

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

2

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

3

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

4

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

5

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

6

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

7

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.00

8

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

7

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

1

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

2

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

3

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

4

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

5

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

6

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

5

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

6

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

7

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

8

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.01

9

Mes

sage

No

L3.1

.02

0

Gene (SNP) (2)Body weight (3)

Waist (2)Physical activity (3)

Glucose level (3)Cholesterol levels (3)

Normal weight

Primary Outcomes

Participants ate significantly healthier diets after

receiving PN compared with the control group

Future Opportunities

More detailed profiling

diet markers

disease risk markers

Personalise Dietary

Advice

Beger et al Metabolomics 2016

Overall Conclusions

Personalised Nutrition Advice

Metabolomics teamA McNamara, Dr A O Gorman

H Gibbons, Dr K Horner, C

Erraught’ X Yin, V O Sullivan

Dr Harsha Pepadti, Dr L Kirwan

K Li, R AbudulWahab, A Curran

J Davison, Dr O Grant, T Alegare,

Dr M Clarke,

Collaborators

Nutritech partners: G Frost, Imperial College

JINGO partners

Food4me partners (M Gibney, E Gibney, H Roche)