A novel personalized nutrition strategy for improved health through precision prevention of non-communicable dieases

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has reached epidemic proportions worldwide and represents one of the top public health challenges with implications in terms of morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs. There is an urgent need for more effective prevention strategies to combat T2D. Diet is a major modifiable risk factor of chronic diseases and an important target for lifestyle prevention.

Dietary fibre-rich foods, particularly whole grains have been consistently associated with lowered risk of T2D, although results from dietary interventions are inconsistent, possibly because large inter-individual differences in responses.

The mechanisms are yet not fully understood, but recent data suggest that gut microbiota and metabolites derived from gut fermentation of dietary fibre, i.e. short chain fatty acids are of importance.

The overall aim is to investigate whether a tailored diet rich in dietary fiber, designed for producing butyrate, could effectively improve metabolic risk factors among individuals at elevated risk of developing T2D and thereby improve public health.

The aim is further to explore whether prevention of T2D could be attributed to butyrate per se or by other mechanisms related to fiber fermentation and if effects differ between butyrate from dietary fiber substrates and oral administration of commercially available butyrate as a dietary supplement.

Moreover, molecular mechanisms of the effects of butyrate on diabetes risk factors will be investigated in an animal model.