Nutritional impact on specific health aspects

Nutritional impact on specific health aspects aims for greater understanding of the age-independent link between the composition and metabolic activity of microbiota, and biomarkers for various health conditions. These insights will support the development of food products with scientifically-substantiated effects.

Research scope

  • Association studies between specified metabolome, diet and microbiome, on gut health and the gastrointestinal epithelial and immune barrier, resulting in the selection of a biomarker profile.
  • Investigate which nutritional components/ingredients impact the selected biomarker profile.
  • Change the dietary intake to affect biomarkers and measure the impact of this on immune fitness, epithelial integrity and function in different age groups (young, adult and elderly). Eczema, in combination with mucosal integrity, would be an easy way to measure relevant health phenotypes in infants, and might have a partial overlap with low-grade inflammation in the elderly.
  • For infants we must focus on naturally-occurring, immune-related problems. In the adult/elderly population we can consider challenge models.