CABALA | Objectives

The overall aim of CABALA_DIET&HEALTH is to provide direct evidence in humans that diet-gut microbiota interactions, as indicated by circulating bile acids (CBA) profiles, determine metabolic disease risk, providing at once a validated biomarker of health and a unifying molecular basis for efficacious probiotics, prebiotics and polyphenols.

The specific objectives of CABALA_DIET&HEALTH are:

  • To establish circulating bile acid (CBA) profiles as biomarkers of health, modulated by diet and exercise, which reflect a change in metabolic health.
  • To establish whether dietary modulation of BA profiles indicate a change in health status.
  • To correlate CBA profiles with adherence to the Mediterranean diet, intake of fiber/polyphenol rich foods and measures of metabolic health (BMI, insulin/glucose and lipid homeostasis), using existing randomised control trials (RCT).
  • To measure the ability of probiotics, prebiotics and polyphenol with foods to modulate post-prandial CBA profiles, through a bespoke short-term RCT.
  • To measure how polyphenol rich whole foods and exercise promote metabolic health in susceptible individuals through modulation of CBA signaling.
  • To link CBA profiles or metabotype with microbiome signatures and BA biotransformation potential using high-resolution metagenomics.
  • To establish the molecular basis of BA regulation of immune and metabolic homeostasis by measuring the relative BA-metabotype receptor activation potential.