Omega 3 and Fibre intervention study to improve metabolic health
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Utilising Omega 3 and Fibre to improve metabolic health: A proof of concept nutritional intervention study targeting the gut microbiome
IRAS ID
234186
Contact name
Tim Spector
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Metabolic syndrome represents a major health burden worldwide affecting 20-30% of the population. This clustering of abnormalities that confers an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus, is the hallmark of “unhealthy” aging in longevity studies. Preventive strategies have so far failed since they have focused mainly on reducing caloric intake, ignoring the metabolic dysfunction in the aging body. The growing importance of the gut microbiota in all aspects of human health is clear, and unlike our genomes is potentially highly modifiable and tightly related to metabolic and immune efficiency, energy and fatty acid metabolism and satiety hormones. We and others have reported that higher microbiome diversity correlates with significantly lower long-term risk of weight gain and metabolic syndrome. We have recently shown that serum levels of omega-3 fatty acids correlate with higher microbiome diversity, and increased abundance of bacteria that produce butyrate are linked to lower inflammation of the gut. We propose therefore to carry out a proof of concept nutritional intervention study in the TwinsUK cohort. The TwinsUK sample is probably the most detailed omic and phenotypic resource in the world and is ideal for this study. The mechanisms that result in improved microbiome composition and diversity will be explored in a highly focused novel interventional study hypothesizing that key fatty acid pathways are crucially involved in the link between diet, microbiome, immune phenotypes and metabolic syndrome. The specific objectives are to measure changes in gut microbiome composition in response to fibre supplementation compared to omega-3 fatty acid supplementation. The study will measure faecal metabolites relevant to fatty acid metabolism (short chain fatty acids), the abundance of microbial species linked to higher or lower inflammation and immune cell phenotypes to unravel the link between inflammation, diet and metabolic syndrome. There is a real lack of good diet intervention studies in this field and if successful this trial will pave the way to funding a wide variety of other diet intervention studies.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/WM/0066
Date of REC Opinion
7 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion