Periodic Reporting for period 4 - Stance4Health (Smart Technologies for personAlised Nutrition and Consumer Engagement)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2023-06-30
The problem addressed is how, through diet, we can improve overweight in children and adults and its dire consequences for health and how to improve nutrition in Celiac Disease and Food Allergies in children
Stance4Health's overall goal is to develop a comprehensive Smart Personalized Nutrition (SPN) service based on the use of mobile technologies, as well as food production as it will optimize gut microbiota activity and long-term consumer engagement.
S4H addresses the development of new, safe and healthy foods for overweight children and adults, and children with celiac disease and food allergies
Why is it important for society?
NUTRITIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY
S4H will help the European Society to INCREASE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING of people who adopt a healthy eating behavior allowing them a better quality of life and a lasting life
S4H will help the European Society to PREVENT DIET-RELATED DISEASES and non-communicable diseases NCD
S4H will allow the European Society to have more TRAINED CONSUMERS to make healthy and sustainable dietary decisions over time
S4H will get DIETS WITH PERSONALIZED ADVICE to each individual and scientifically evaluated
S4H will also help the European Society to IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF CHILDREN with celiac disease and food allergy and to better understand these types of disorders
S4H will help you achieve a healthy diet for a healthy life in the European Society
What are the overall objectives?
S4H WILL SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH THESE SIX SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
1. Definition of a high-quality metabolic network of the human gut microbiota and insights into how the network is affected by foods and culinary practices
2. Development of food databases to be implemented the mobile app
3. Development of a dietetic software mobile app for consumers i-Diet
4. Design of customized foods for specific vulnerable target groups
5. Citizen engagement with personalised nutrition
6. Validation of the smart personalised nutrition strategies in adult and children populations, in a near to operational environment
We have also build food composition databases with information from Germany, Greece and Spain. The boiled databases contains nutritional information about common fresh and processed foods, images, barcodes and a long list of recipes from each country.
The iDiet app has been finished, to allow the development of the human nutritional interventions. This app now includes all the food composition databases. In addition, the Toleda T9 smart band can be connected to iDiet to check physical activity and other health parameters of the consumer. In addition, different partners have been gathering information about consumer potential to engage in personalised nutrition, in other to allow a long-lasting effect of the app use.
The companies involved in the project have been developing different food products enriched with tannins (cereal bars and cocoa rings), tannins capsules, powder formulations for physically active adults and also a nutraceutical to improve energy use. In addition, a metabolomics test (performed with urine dried in a paper strip) has been tested in adults and children, finding very useful metabolites (derived from the metabolic activity of health-related gut bacteria) to follow modifications in the health status and correlations with gut microbiota composition and functionality.
The research groups of Spain and Greece obtained permission from the corresponding ethics committees to perform the nutritional interventions with adults and children. The interventions have been successfully performed and the Smart Personalized Nutrition service validated. We have found that the use of the app improves the intake of healthy foods (vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc.) while decreasing the consumption of unhealthy foodstuffs such as processed meats, sugars, etc. In this sense it has been found a higher production of healthy short chain fatty acids by the gut microbiota, including the presence of some health-promoting bacteria in the gut.
The colleagues in charge of the communication and dissemination activities did a great job, distributing the work done through social media and press releases. In addition, 33 scientific papers have been published so far.
S4Hwill help the European Society to
• INCREASE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING of people who adopt healthy eating behavior
• PREVENT DISEASES RELATED TO DIET
• TRAINED CONSUMERS to make healthy and sustainable dietary decisions over time
• DIETS WITH PERSONALIZED ADVICE to each individual and scientifically evaluated
• IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF CHILDREN with celiac disease and food allergy and to better understand these types of disorders