Identifying Wearable Biomarkers to Monitor Dietary Intake

Summary

Background: Measuring what people eat is a challenge in nutrition research. Traditional methods, like food diaries, rely on self-reporting of individuals, and suffer from poor accuracy and recall bias.

Aims: This project aims to identify physiological biomarkers related to food and energy intake, which may be used to develop an objective tool to estimate individuals' food intake in future. Eating behaviours are accompanied by significant physiological changes such as skin temperature, blood oxygen saturation, pulse rate etc. The investigators intend to investigate whether monitoring these physiological changes can help us estimate eating behaviour, such as meal size, eating speed, and duration of meals.

Study design: Ten healthy adults will be invited for two study visits at NIHR Imperial Clinical Research Facility. Each visit will last for approximately 2 hr. They will consume a high- and low-calorie meal designed by nutritional researchers in a randomised order. During eating events, the investigators will track their physiological changes via a bedside monitor and wearable sensors. Blood samples will be taken from participants to measure their glycaemic response. Associations between energy load, glycaemic response, and physiological changes will be investigated. Our findings may promote an accelerated development of a wearable tool for dietary assessment in future.

Conditions

• Energy Intake
• Metabolism
• Digestion
• Wearables
• Dietary Intake Assessment
• Healthy Volunteers
• Blood Glucose

Interventions

OTHER

High Calorie Meal Intervention

Subjects will receive a unhealthy meal high in calorie, sugar and fat

OTHER

Low Calorie Meal Intervention

Subjects will receive a healthy meal with balanced macronutrient, high in vegetables and dietary fibre

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Imperial College London

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mingzhu Cai, PhD · Nutrition Research Section, Imperial College London

• Mayue Shi, PhD · Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-08-19

Primary Completion

2025-06-30

Completion

2025-07-31

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations