After examining the link between metabolites in urine and
overall health, researchers created a 5-minute test to reveal a person's
nutritional fingerprint.
Research finds a new way to look at
the relationship between what we eat and our health.
Share on PinterestNew research
suggests that we need to rethink what constitutes a healthful diet for an
individual.
It might seem obvious that good
nutrition is linked to good health. Still, it has proven difficult to identify
specific links between foods and health outcomes. Two new studies from
scientists at Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom, and various
collaborators report insights from the analysis of metabolites in urine.
The researchers have created a
5-minute urine test that can capture a person’s “nutritional fingerprint.”
“Diet is a key contributor to human health and disease,
though it is notoriously difficult to measure accurately because it relies on
an individual’s ability to recall what and how much they ate. For instance,
asking people to track their diets through apps or diaries can often lead to
inaccurate reports about what they really eat,” explains study author Joram
Posma, of ICL’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion, and Reproduction.
“This
research reveals this technology can help provide in-depth information on the
quality of a person’s diet and whether it is the right type of diet for their
individual biological makeup.”
— Joram Posma, study co-author
Scientists from ICL and their collaborators — from
Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, the University of Illinois at Chicago,
and Murdoch University in Australia — authored the first of the two studies. It
appears in the journal Nature Food.
Metabolites are molecules that the body produces during
cellular metabolism, and some are measurable in a person’s urine.
Working with 1,848 study
participants in the U.S., the researchers were able to identify associations
between 46 different metabolites and food types.
Co-author Paul Elliot, Chair in Epidemiology and Public
Health Medicine at ICL, explains:
“Through careful measurement of people’s diets and
collection of their urine excreted over two 24-hour periods, we were able to
establish links between dietary inputs and urinary output of metabolites that
may help improve understanding of how our diets affect health. Healthful diets
have a different pattern of metabolites in the urine than those associated with
worse health outcomes.”
Metabolites were linked with the ingestion of alcohol,
citrus fruit, fructose (fruit sugar), glucose, red meats, and other animal
proteins, such as chicken. Nutrients, including vitamin C and calcium, were
also associated with metabolites in the study.
Metabolites’ associations with health outcomes also became
apparent in the data. For instance, the scientists found that the metabolites
formate and sodium were linked to obesity and higher blood pressure.
For the second research project, which also appears in Nature Food,
the ICL team worked again with scientists from Murdoch University, along with
researchers from Newcastle University and Aberystwyth University, both in the
U.K.
The study reports that the scientists were able to produce
an easy-to-administer urine test that could reveal a person’s metabolite
profile in the form of a Dietary Metabotype Score (DMS).
Study author Isabel Garcia-Perez, of Imperial College, says:
“Our technology can provide
crucial insights into how foods are processed by individuals in different ways
— and can help health professionals, such as dietitians, provide dietary advice
tailored to individual patients.”
In evaluating the test, the scientists conducted experiments
with 19 people whom they instructed to follow one of four types of diets
(ranging from very healthful to unhealthful) strictly based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) guidelines. The healthiest
adhered 100% to the WHO recommendations, and the least healthy just 25% of
them.
The study authors found that even among those who reported
following the same diet, there were differences in the DMS.
WHO recommendations contain a great deal of latitude in the
choice of specific foods. One recommendation, for example, is, “Fruit,
vegetables, legumes (e.g., lentils and beans), nuts, and whole grains (e.g.,
unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat, and brown rice).”
The researchers found that, in
general, the more healthful the person’s diet, the higher the DMS. Those with
higher scores also had lower blood sugar and excreted an increased amount
of energy from the body in the urine.
The study characterizes the difference between high energy
urine and low energy urine as meaning that a person with a higher DMS would be
losing 4 extra calories a day, which equates to about 1,500 calories a year,
and would thus avoid about 215 g of body fat annually.
Next up for the team is investigating the use of this new
technology in people at risk of cardiovascular disease.
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Aside from the obvious value of the 5-minute test, the
studies suggest that it may be time to use the new findings to personalize
healthful food recommendations.
Newcastle University’s John Mathers says:
“We show here how different people metabolize the same foods
in highly individual ways. This has implications for understanding the
development of nutrition-related diseases and for more personalized dietary
advice to improve public health.”
The link between specific metabolites, foods, and outcomes
also raises other considerations, according to ICL’s Gary Frost, another
co-author:
“These findings bring a new and more in-depth understanding
to how our bodies process and use food at the molecular level. The research
brings into question whether we should rewrite food tables to incorporate these
new metabolites that have biological effects in the body.”
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