New landmark UK study will combine wearable tech and biomarkers to improve nutrition research

In an effort to establish more reliable ways of recording people’s diet on a daily basis, scientists are recruiting adults from all parts of the UK to participate in a new trial. They aim to pave the way for better public health strategies to tackle diseases linked to poor diets, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. 

The team is recruiting 133 adults to take part in the five-week program. It will involve a combination of innovative tools, including wearable cameras, blood-monitoring devices, and metabolomic analysis of urine samples, combined with apps for self-reporting.

They stress that diets are typically measured by participants completing complex and time-consuming dietary recall surveys themselves, which can lead to unreliable results.

“One of the problems facing nutrition researchers is getting a true picture of people’s eating habits,” says Dr. Manfred Beckmann, lead principal investigator from the Department of Life Sciences at Aberystwyth University, UK.

“To date, most studies have relied on participants remembering and recording the details of their meals, but memory can be unreliable, and hence the data is not always robust,” he underscores. “Additionally, people often change their diet when they know they’re being observed.”

“By developing a new methodology, we aim to get a much more accurate record of people’s diets, which will help inform how governments and policymakers assess the success of efforts to improve people’s health and give better dietary advice.”

Study parameters

Earlier this week, Nutrition Insight interviewed Dr. Thomas Wilson from Aberystwyth University’s Department of Life Sciences, who co-authored the preliminary research that laid the foundation for the upcoming study. 

Published in Nature Food, the review combined emerging evidence from nutrition science, metabolomics, microbiome research, computer vision, and sensor technologies.

Participants in the upcoming study will wear camera glasses to record what they eat and drink, while supplying blood and urine samples collected in their homes to show what their bodies absorb from food.

To date, most studies have relied on participants remembering and recording the details of their meals, but memory can be unreliable.They will also complete simplified online food and drink questionnaires about their eating habits.

By comparing these methods, the scientists aim to find out which combination of tools works best for studying diets in real life.

The new study is part of a wider five-year research project led by Aberystwyth University in collaboration with experts at the UK’s University of Reading, the University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London.

“The benefit of using urine and blood samples to test for ‘markers’ of food and drinks is that they give us objective data,” says Dr. Amanda Lloyd from the Department of Life Sciences at Aberystwyth University.

“We have already put our methodology to the test in a pilot study carried out in two controlled laboratory environments, but we will now see how effective our new tools are in monitoring exactly what people eat and drink in their daily lives and in the comfort of their own homes.”

The research is funded by a £2.5 million (US$3.4 million) grant provided by the UK’s Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.