The same dietary recommendation for everyone is not necessarily ideal. In January 2024, one of the largest studies to date in precision nutrition started. It aims to determine the right diet for the right person or group at the right time, to promote health and reduce the risk of diseases. Professor Rikard Landberg and his colleagues at Chalmers University of Technology lead the research, which is a part of a unique Swedish project.
The large SCAPIS study (the Swedish CardioPulmonary BioImage Study) is entering its second decade with the goal of predicting who is at risk of conditions such as heart attacks or strokes and treating them before the disease occurs. In the new sub-study on precision nutrition, SCAPIS2-HOME, 3200 people from Gothenburg and 1200 people from Umeå will be invited to participate. The aim is to examine how people react differently to the same meals and discover new biomarkers for individuals with different response patterns and how these biomarkers can be linked to long-term health.
"This is groundbreaking because, for the first time, we will have the opportunity to directly link how different individuals react to meals — also focusing on long-term health outcomes. The advantage of this study is the extensive and sophisticated investigations into heart and vascular health and lung function which will be conducted, to which our meal outcomes can be linked," says Rikard Landberg, Professor of Food and Nutrition Science.
The right lifestyle and diet can prevent disease
Between 30 and 60 percent of non-communicable diseases affecting people's health — such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and certain forms of cancer — can be prevented with the right lifestyle and diet. Rikard Landberg and his team have already shown in previous studies that the same diet can have different effects on different people.
Therefore, the new study aims to find biomarkers that can indicate how individuals with different health and risk profiles respond to specific meals and how this information can be used to provide the best possible individually tailored dietary recommendations.
"Precision nutrition has a very important role to play in disease prevention. If we can demonstrate that individualized or group-adapted dietary advice works better than general 'one-size-fits-all' advice, we can improve both the health outcomes and the motivation to follow the recommendations," says Rikard Landberg.
Tests can be performed at home
The study will investigate how different individuals react differently to meals, in terms of blood sugar levels and metabolism. Researchers will take blood samples and examine hundreds of markers in the blood.
Blood samples will be largely taken by the participants themselves, which is unusual in studies like this. This can be done at home, where the participants collect a few drops of blood from the finger on a sampling card. A unique sampling kit for a specific volume of blood is used, which then can be used for quantifying various substances in the blood with high precision.
The conditions for the study are unique — and very good. Unlike many other countries, Sweden collects large amounts of data and keep well-organized biobanks. These are linked to various registers, including disease registers, which are connected through our personal identity numbers.
Collaboration with Harvard and MIT
As a part of the study, Rikard Landberg's team collaborates with leading researchers from Harvard University and the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT to study how gut bacteria affect individuals’ responses to specific diets. The collaboration also includes studies examining whether metabolic products in the blood can be used as biomarkers showing how individuals respond to diet. A major focus is on harmonizing methods to be used for sample analysis later in the study — with corresponding methods used in studies in the USA.
More about the study
- The study is a sub-study of the follow-up examination currently being conducted on 15,000 individuals who joined the SCAPIS study 10 years ago. SCAPIS, the Swedish CardioPulmonary BioImage Study, is a unique study and a knowledge bank for researchers in heart, vascular, and lung diseases.
- In the original study, 30,000 people were recruited to, among other things, develop new methods to predict who is at risk of conditions such as heart attacks or strokes and treat them before the disease occurs.
- In the new study, diet is also thoroughly investigated, which can provide important puzzle pieces for how we can best prevent and alleviate diseases in the future.
- 15,000 individuals will participate in the 10-year follow-up of SCAPIS.
- Of these, 4,500 will be invited to the dietary study, called SCAPIS2-HOME, with 3,200 from Gothenburg and 1,200 from Umeå. The large amounts of data are unique to Sweden. Rikard Landberg and his team will work closely with the SCAPIS teams in Gothenburg and Umeå to take blood samples and examine hundreds of markers in the blood.
More on precision nutrition
- A new study highlights the importance of precision nutrition
- The Division of Food and Nutrition Science: Precision nutrition of health
Contact
- Full Professor, Food and Nutrition Science, Life Sciences