Physiological monitoring dietary behaviours
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Identifying physiological biomarkers for monitoring dietary behaviours
IRAS ID
333281
Contact name
Mingzhu Cai
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
NA, NA
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Measuring what people eat is a challenge in nutrition research. Traditional methods, like food diaries, rely on self-reporting of individuals, suffer from poor accuracy and recall bias. This project aims to identify physiological biomarkers relate to food and energy intake, which may be used to develop an objective tool to estimate individuals’ food intake in future. Eating behaviours are accompanied by significant physiological changes such as skin temperature, blood oxygen saturation, pulse rate etc. We intend to investigate whether monitoring these physiological changes can help us estimate the eating behaviour, such as meal size, eating speed, and duration of meals.
Ten healthy adults will be invited for two study visits at NIHR Imperial Clinical Research Facility. Each visit will last for approximately 2 hr. They will consume a high- and low-calorie meal designed by nutritional researchers in a randomised order. During eating events, we will track their physiological changes via a CE-marked monitor and wearable sensors. Blood samples will be taken from participants to measure their glycaemic response. Associations between energy load, glycaemic response, and physiological changes will be investigated. Our findings may promote an accelerated development of a wearable tool for dietary assessment in future.REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/1379
Date of REC Opinion
13 Feb 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion