The application of metabolomics to human nutrition research

Abstract

Background: Recent developments in analytical technologies and bioinformatics are driving modem advances in biological research. Many of these methods will have particular relevance in the field of nutrition. Among these techniques, is metabolomics, which provides the opportunity for holistic metabolite assessment. Using technologies such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or mass spectrometry (MS), metabolomics measures as many low molecular weight metabolites as possible in biological samples and in combination with multivariate data analysis (MVDA), the global metabolic response to specific stimuli can be assessed. The early challenges in applying metabolomics to nutrition research will be to establish optimal experimental methods, to reach an understanding of the boundaries of normal variation in metabolic profiles and to elucidate the impact of acute and chronic dietary intake on these profiles. Objectives: The objectives of this thesis were to explore the application of metabolomics in human nutrition, by producing guidelines for blood and urine collection and to investigate the extent of normal variation in human biofluid metabolic profiles. In addition, this work aimed to ascertain the impact of both acute and chronic dietary intake on metabolic profiles. The final objective was to explore novel MVDA techniques such as the merging of different datasets.