Lifestyle factors in health and inflammation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Lifestyle factors in health and chronic inflammatory diseases
IRAS ID
255033
Contact name
Christel Gudberg
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Ludger Ltd
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
There is growing evidence that glycosylation patterns of plasma glycoproteins are a good metric of functional health and systemic inflammation in the human body. Glycan profiles change over time and in the context of different health states such as during the development of chronic or other diseases. Moreover, it is well known that key lifestyle factors such as exercise, nutrition and sleep have important implications for a wide range of health markers in the body. However, the relationship between glycan profiles, health factors and other biomarkers is not well understood and there is currently very limited evidence on the effects of lifestyle factors on glycosylation patterns.
The purpose of this project is to assess the impact of lifestyle factors on molecular markers of inflammation and is composed of two studies:
STUDY 1 will involve a short (10-week) intervention and will provide proof-of-principle data between measures of systemic inflammation in the human body and how they correlate with lifestyle factors (specifically, exercise and nutrition). Additionally, using the different approaches described in this protocol we will demonstrate a correlation between a standard composite measure of acute and chronic inflammation (C-reactive protein, or CRP) and a novel and more sensitive glycosylation measure of chronic inflammation in the body (glycomics assay, or GA).
The follow-on STUDY 2 will collect longitudinal data for a wider set of complex health and lifestyle factors (including exercise, nutrition, sleep, cognition, as well as further omics data such as microbiomics and genomics). A major objective of this study is to develop explanatory and predictive integrative models of the interactions between these complex lifestyle factors and molecular markers of systemic inflammation, which over time can be tuned more specifically to the individual by adjusting key relevant lifestyle factors with the overall aim of reducing chronic systemic inflammation.
REC name
South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0105
Date of REC Opinion
19 Mar 2019
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion