Diet and disease
It is still unclear exactly how lifestyle factors, including diet, affect our health and the development of diseases. Why do some people contract a particular condition, whilst others do not? The environment we live in certainly plays an important role here, but genetic characteristics are also key. Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (HDHL) is funding research projects aimed at preventing diet-related chronic disorders such as obesity and metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
More and more people are overweight, and so are contracting related conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It is known that dietary habits can cause metabolic changes in the body (such as increased cholesterol levels and insulin resistance), making them an important risk factor for the diseases mentioned. Genetic and epigenetic factors also play a role in the development of disorders like obesity and diabetes. Diet can affect the functioning of genes, too, and that can influence your metabolic health as you age. HDHL funds projects investigating the relationship between nutrition, epigenetics and health. Below we visit the Dutch researchers involved in this work.
Project visits
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During our online visit, the researchers showed us their progress with the DIMENSION project and presented its promising results so far. They are investigating personalised responses to diet by means of an intervention study and data analysis. Work under way at LUMC includes an intervention study on the effects of diet and exercise on changes in gene expression. Diet is an important risk factor when it comes to cardiometabolic health. Strikingly, a year after the intervention to make them eat more healthily and take more exercise, 66 per cent of the participants are maintaining that regime because it is a lifestyle they like. Whether this is also having the desired effect on the outcome of gene expression and the risk of cardiometabolic disease is still under investigation.
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NutriPROGRAM is looking at whether epigenetic mechanisms cause eating habits during pregnancy and early childhood to affect a child’s later health. To learn more, data from a large number of international studies is being combined. When we visited them online, the Wageningen researchers told us about the inventory they have compiled of all the information available within the project consortium with regard to diet during pregnancy and the first years of life (for instance, exactly what subjects from different countries eat). This inventory provides the input for the data analyses. In addition, Dutch researchers are involved in the development of a “healthy eating” scoring system for children and pregnant women.
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PREcisE is studying whether a disturbed glucose metabolism during pregnancy affects the health of the child, and what role the epigenome plays here. The researchers took the ZonMw team through the first results of the project: it seems that the way the mother’s body responds after eating sugars is correlated to a specific gene. This gene is likely to be important in the development of diabetes. That gene is now going to be investigated further, and the researchers will try to establish if there is a link with the child. They are also looking at whether the amount and type of carbohydrates (sugars) eaten by a pregnant woman affects her child. The research group is currently in the process of disseminating its interim results, and has already contributed to handbooks for midwives and for trainee doctors. In these publications, amongst other things they address the impact of a healthy parental lifestyle during pregnancy upon the health of the child.
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We paid an online visit to Maastricht for an update on the STAY project. This is investigating whether foods low in sulphur-containing amino acids (including methionine and cysteine) have a beneficial effect on body weight. Foods containing relatively high levels of these acids include meat, fish, dairy produce and eggs. The Dutch component of the project is making use of data from a large population study, the Maastricht Study. So far, several biomarkers have been measured in blood and urine from its participants. In addition, the researchers are conducting a number of epidemiological analyses. Initial results show an association between higher methionine intake and increased liver fat. An association has also been observed between a higher intake of cysteine and greater levels of body fat. In the long term, STAY should help with the development of health and dietary recommendations for overweight and obese individuals.
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ePIDEMic, a research project on proteins and obesity, is investigating whether methylglyoxal (MGO) in food poses a risk to human health. MGO is a substance which can glycate (attach sugar to) proteins, turning them into a form that plays an important role in the development of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The Maastricht researchers conducted their first experiments on mice, administering them with either a high or a low concentration of MGO. The higher concentration caused an increase of MGO levels in blood plasma and a rise in blood pressure. By contrast, the lower concentration was found to have beneficial effects such as a decrease in blood sugar levels. The next step is to study the concentration dependence of MGO in more detail. Later in the project, MGO’s effects on human health will also be investigated.
International collaborations
Both NutriPROGRAM and PREcisE are collaborating with a number of international initiatives, including a large consortium dedicated to sharing epigenetic cohort data (PACE). That gives the participating researchers access to information about much larger groups of subjects. And the more data they have, the more reliable their statistical analyses become.