Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FIBRE-MATCH (Precision nutrition approach for increasing fibre intake and health using microbiota-matched sustainable fibre sources)
Berichtszeitraum: 2024-09-01 bis 2025-08-31
The consumption of dietary fibres (DFs) should be increased to comply with the dietary guidelines and fuel various beneficial metabolites produced by the gut microbiota, such as short chain fatty acids. Microbiota also produces gases that, in sensitive persons including irritable bowel syndrome patients (IBS), trigger disturbing and at worst disabling gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, leading to the avoidance of fibre-rich foods. The gas formation patterns and amounts are highly individual and interrelated to GI parameters such as gut pH and transit rate.
The overall aim of the FIBRE-MATCH project is to match dietary fibre types to gut microbiome subtypes to optimise metabolic output and minimise digestive symptoms.
This involves identifying major fibre-metabolising gut microbiome types in Europeans and in vitro screening of their metabolic outputs from common dietary fibres. Based on these results, we will develop fibre-rich food prototypes that will be used in a proof-of-concept trial to study whether the intake of microbiome-tailored high-fibre foods provokes less gastrointestinal symptoms than a control high-fibre food. Furthermore, we will evaluate the impact of microbiota-matched dietary fibre intake on non-communicable disease risk markers and habitual fibre intake. Finally, the project will develop a database on the contents of different dietary fibres in foods to facilitate analysis of food consumption data from the gut microbiota perspective and enable more specific dietary recommendations.
The results will enable personalised prevention and alleviation of gut symptoms that are common in the general population and severely diminish the quality of life of IBS patients, as well as novel opportunities to select DFs to bring individually tailored health benefits. In the long run, higher consumption of DF enabled by the FIBRE-MATCH concept reduces the difference between the recommended fibre intake and actual intake (the fibre gap) and contributes to the prevention of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) as well as general health and well-being through changes in diet. Increasing fibre intake brings considerable savings in healthcare and society through prevention and management of many GI disorders and NCDs. For instance, for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) killing 1.7 EU citizens in 2021, the healthcare costs are almost €300 billion in EU.
The overall aim of the FIBRE-MATCH project is to match dietary fibre types to gut microbiome subtypes to optimise metabolic output and minimise digestive symptoms.
This involves identifying major fibre-metabolising gut microbiome types in Europeans and in vitro screening of their metabolic outputs from common dietary fibres. Based on these results, we will develop fibre-rich food prototypes that will be used in a proof-of-concept trial to study whether the intake of microbiome-tailored high-fibre foods provokes less gastrointestinal symptoms than a control high-fibre food. Furthermore, we will evaluate the impact of microbiota-matched dietary fibre intake on non-communicable disease risk markers and habitual fibre intake. Finally, the project will develop a database on the contents of different dietary fibres in foods to facilitate analysis of food consumption data from the gut microbiota perspective and enable more specific dietary recommendations.
The results will enable personalised prevention and alleviation of gut symptoms that are common in the general population and severely diminish the quality of life of IBS patients, as well as novel opportunities to select DFs to bring individually tailored health benefits. In the long run, higher consumption of DF enabled by the FIBRE-MATCH concept reduces the difference between the recommended fibre intake and actual intake (the fibre gap) and contributes to the prevention of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) as well as general health and well-being through changes in diet. Increasing fibre intake brings considerable savings in healthcare and society through prevention and management of many GI disorders and NCDs. For instance, for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) killing 1.7 EU citizens in 2021, the healthcare costs are almost €300 billion in EU.
Significant progress has been achieved in the first year of the FIBRE-MATCH project especially on setting up the workflows for sequence-based and phenotypic assessment of the individual variations in the capacity of the gut microbiota to metabolise different DFs. This includes processing of ca. 1700 gut metagenome samples for identification and relative quantification of DF-active functional characteristics of individual samples, and testing of various microbiome clustering approaches (WP1). We primarily focused on identifying and quantifying fibre-degrading enzymes (glycoside hydrolases and polysaccharides, as denoted by their EC number) with complementary analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes). Preliminary clustering analysis based on fibre degradation enzyme abundance revealed a bimodal distribution, with samples segregating into high and low fibre degradation potential groups across all fibre types. A parallel computational pipeline was developed to predict net intestinal gas using gas-related enzymes. In vitro (WP2), methodology have been developed, applied and optimised for microplate experiments for initial assessment of growth of selected bacterial samples (communities) on eight different DFs, followed by test-tube experiments for the measurement of acid and gas production of the fecal cultures on the same DFs. The results indicate that the metabolite patterns depended more on fecal culture but also on the substrate, with high dependence on the pH. The fibre sources preliminary selected to be used for the food prototypes in the WP4 trials are rye bran, oat bran, and faba bean. The chemical composition of samples of two rye brans (Finnish and Estonian) and oat bran as well as their fermented counterparts and fermented and baked rye bran were analysed for monosaccharides, starch, β-glucan, fructan, and protein (WP3). The composition differed depending on the fibre sources and processing. The results are utilised to develop fibre-rich food prototypes such as fibre-rich powder for addition to smoothies or similar products, fibre-rich snacks such as crisp bread, and fibre-rich bread in the clinical trials.
The ongoing work represents a significant progress towards the goals of the FIBRE-MATCH project, particularly in relation to the
• Performance of different bioinformatic approaches for assessing the utility of (meta)genomic data from the gut microbiota in categorising individuals based on genes and functionalities related to the degradation of dietary fibres
• Development of a bioinformatic approach for assessing individual’s intestinal gas production and fixation capacity based on stool metagenomic data
• Individual variation in metabolic outputs by the gut microbiota from different dietary fibres
• Composition and chemical characteristics of dietary fibre sources such as rye and oat bran before and after processing
• Performance of different bioinformatic approaches for assessing the utility of (meta)genomic data from the gut microbiota in categorising individuals based on genes and functionalities related to the degradation of dietary fibres
• Development of a bioinformatic approach for assessing individual’s intestinal gas production and fixation capacity based on stool metagenomic data
• Individual variation in metabolic outputs by the gut microbiota from different dietary fibres
• Composition and chemical characteristics of dietary fibre sources such as rye and oat bran before and after processing