None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Background: People of Asian descent are at much greater risk of poor metabolic health and diabetes at a younger age and a lower body weight than those of European Caucasian descent. The reason why some individuals are more susceptible than others and what controls their diabetes risk may lie in the storage of body fat, and may be identified through early changes in serum metabolite profile. Gaining even small amounts of body weight can lead to the fat ‘spilling over’ from adipose tissue and into important organs such as the muscle, liver and pancreas, which in turn may significantly increase risk of disease. Often known as the TOFI profile – ‘Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside’ – people who appear ostensibly slim and/or mildly overweight can develop diabetes whilst those who are very overweight and/or obese may not. Few predictive biomarkers of early diabetes risk and propensity to susceptibility or resilience have yet been determined. Objective: To investigate diabetic risk profile, susceptibility and resilience to weight gain and increasing adiposity in a population of Asian Chinese and Caucasian adults; using body composition and metabolomic techniques. Design: This is a cross-sectional study, 400 participants, aged 18-70 years, of Asian Chinese (n=200) or Caucasian European (n=200) ethnicity. A fasting blood sample will be collected to assess diabetic profile based on fasting plasma glucose, and also for untargeted metabolomics profiling; whole body and segmental fat free mass and adipose tissue fat mass will be measured on a single occasion using DEXA scanning; and in a subset of 100 individuals ectopic lipid storage in key organs including liver, pancreas and muscle will be measured using MRI/S. Findings: This is a program conducted within the National Science Challenge High Value Nutrition (HVN) program which aims to determine novel prediabetic biomarkers which, in future studies may be shown to be responsive to nutrition intervention.
Interventions
200 Asian Chinese and 200 European Caucasian adults aged 18-70 years, normal weight or overweight having body-mass index (BMI) between 20-45 kg/m2, and either healthy or prediabetic will be enrolled into the study. They will be required to attend The Human Nutrition Unit (HNU), University of Auckland; anthropometry and fasted blood samples will be collected to determine risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Participants will also have a body composition dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DeXA) scan
200 Asian Chinese and 200 European Caucasian adults aged 18-70 years, normal weight or overweight having body-mass index (BMI) between 20-45 kg/m2, and either healthy or prediabetic will be enrolled into the study. They will be required to attend The Human Nutrition Unit (HNU), University of Auckland; anthropometry and fasted blood samples will be collected to determine risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Participants will also have a body composition dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DeXA) scan to determine total and regional body fat at the Body Composition Laboratory, University of Auckland. In addition, 100 female participants only, due to gender differences in body composition, will be further asked if they would also like to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (MRI/S) scan, to determine ectopic and/or non-adipose tissue organ fat in pancreas and liver. These women will as undergo a short sub-maximal cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) test, to assess their physical fitness which can also affect diabetes risk. Approximately 40 participants, that have undergone the MRI/S scan and CRF test, will also be asked if they would also like to undergo a routine clinical test to measure how well their pancreas secretes the important glucose regulating hormone insulin in response to a glucose challenge, using the intravenous glucose tolerance test (ivGTT). Furthermore, participants will also be asked to collect a stool/faecal sample, using a kit provided by the HNU, so that the gut microbiome can be determined.
Sponsors
University of Auckland
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 70 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Participants of both gender, (i) between 18–70 years (ii) BMI 20–45 kg/m2 (iii) both parents of the same ethnic origin, either European Caucasian or Asian Chinese (including mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea) (iv) normo- or dysglycaemic (fasting plasma glucose, FPG: 5·6–6·9 mmol/L)
Exclusion criteria
*Recent body weight loss/gain >10%, within previous 3 months *Recent bariatric surgery, within previous 6 months *Significant current disease *Pregnant or breastfeeding women *Standard exclusions for DXA and MRI scanning techniques, including cardiac pacemaker
Outcome results
None listed