Metabolomics studies on the effect of dietary interventions on body weight and body composition (DWM

A fully operational NMR Profiling platform has been established as an important enabling capability for DWM and other projects within the NMC. Design principles for measurement schemes for complex large scale intervention studies (such as Diogenes) have been drafted.

The capability to design such measurement schemes will be an important asset in future measurement campaigns of large cohorts. Thus high-quality metabolomic datasets for two extensive diet and lifestyle intervention studies have been obtained, and a novel data-analysis approach (INDSCAL) has been applied for assessment of between-metabolite relationships, thus revealing subtle effects of a dietary intervention on metabolism.

Papers are in progress

• An NMR Platform for profiling of polar metabolites and detailed lipoprotein distributions has been implemented at WU and has successfully been applied to 3 large human nutritional intervention studies (Nottingham, Diogenes, BCL). This NMR profiling platform is an important asset for further valorisation in Nutrition & Health projects and beyond. Further validation of the current regression model for obtaining lipoprotein profiles from NMR spectra is being pursued.
• The significant biological complexity of the Diogenes study has been recognized as a critical factor in the design of the measurement scheme for lipidomic profiling as well as other platforms. The Diogenes study has now been taken as a showcase for designing measurement schemes for complex lifestyle and dietary intervention studies (Saccenti et al., in preparation). This will deliver best practice procedures which will build an important capability within the NMC. 
• Lipoprotein profiling, low-molecular-weight metabolite profiling and lipidomics did not reveal metabolite changes in plasma plasma from overweight human subjects after the intake of green tea over 12 weeks. However, green tea induced changes in between-metabolite relationships calculated by means of the INDSCAL (Jansen et al., to be submitted)
• Significant correlations could be established between metabolome and bodycomposition parameters, incl. visceral fat distribution as measured by MRI.