Theme

Gastrointestinal Health

This theme intends to establish and validate biomarkers for healthy gastrointestinal function and to determine the relationship between diet, gastrointestinal microbiota and maintaining the gastrointestinal immune barrier.
The causal relationship between gastrointestinal metabolism and its microbiota will be understood with specific attention to its influence on weight gain and energy metabolism.
Strategies are being developed to characterise bioactive ingredients with regard to probiotic bacteria (or bacterial cell-wall components) and dietary fibre.

The gut mucosa hosts the body's largest population of immune cells. Nature Immunology in collaboration with Arkitek Studios have produced an animation unravelling the complexities of mucosal . Click here to see the full video: Immunology in the Gut Mucosa

	Prof. Dr Wim Saris, Theme Director Nutrition and Health
"We have a strong scientific basis to push ahead in three themes identified by our industry partners - cardiovascular health, weight management and gastrointestinal health. The Netherlands is leading the way in nutrition research in Europe and all the country’s main centres for nutrition research are partners with TI Food and Nutrition."