Evaluation of individual response to targeted plant-based sustainable diets: from feasibility to biological effect

Scientific evidence suggests that moving toward plant-based diets can be effective in improving both human health and environmental impact [8]. For this reason, there is a strong demand for the development and validation of healthy and sustainable diets considering habits and cultures of specific populations in order to increase adherence and adoption. 

While some examples of such diets have been proposed, preliminary results demonstrated several nutritional issues that may represent a health concern in the long term (e.g. related with the lower intake and/or availability of some micronutrients affecting physiological function). In addition, the feasibility of sustainable dietary patterns in different target groups has not been throughly demonstrated. Therefore, in order to opimize future sustainable diets it is mandatory to develop real life validation studies to identify actual benefits and eventual risks associated to plant based sustainable diets in different target population groups.

The research program involves the following activities:

• Development and validation of a plant-based dietary pattern able to target the main recognised at risk nutrients (e.g. vitamin D, B12, Ca, Fe, W3) through the optimization of dietary sources. The validation will be achieved through a randomised controlled dietary intervention study in adult volunteers selected within the ON FOODS cohort (in connection with spoke 5). The study will evaluate the effect of the diet on adoption, eating behavior, nutrient and non-nutrient intake, nutritional status, and significant physiological function, including the impact on microbial ecosystem and metabolic feature of the host. In addition untargeted proteomic will be exploited to identify potential biomarker of effect to be further explored.
• Implementation of the developed pattern considering individual characteristics (e.g. age, sex, physiological condition, nutritional status) in order to assess response in different target groups (in collaboration with spoke 5). Specifically, the analysis of numerous biomarkers (of metabolic and functional activities) together with individual fingerprinting before and after the interventions will be used to define clusters of individuals with more or less favourable response to the given treatment and to implement predictive approaches enabling the optimizations of diets depending on individual response and specific target group.
• Exploitation of the dietary protocol to include new/improved food products developed in WP4.1 and WP4.4 in order to study their impact within a sustainable balanced diet.

• The validation of plant based dietary patterns developed to cover nutrient needs in different target groups taking into consideration Italian eating habits and traditions and defining feasibility.
• The identification of benefits (on nutritional, functional and metabolic status) and/or risks (e.g. inadequacies or other issues) associated to the long-term intake of plant based dietary patterns with respect to a control diet.
• The identification of potential biomarkers of effect and clusters of individuals with different response to the same treatment to promote predictive approaches enabling the optimizations of diets depending on individual phenotype.
• The validation of new/improved food products developed in order to optimize sustainable diets.