Precision Nutrition for Gut Health: Development of a novel seaweed-containing, gut microbiota targeted nutraceutical

The gut contains the most metabolically active microbial community in the human body, providing innumerable benefits to the host. Illness, age & changes in diet & lifestyle factors can disrupt this complex ecosystem, often causing gastrointestinal issues that can affect overall health. Dietary interventions targeting the gut microbiota such as prebiotics and probiotics are safe and well established approaches that improve gastrointestinal health, by favourably altering the composition of bacteria in the gut (e.g. increasing levels of beneficial microbes, such as bifidobacteria) and producing microbial metabolites which have positive local and systemic effects.

Seaweeds are a rich source of natural bioactives including antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and essential micronutrients such as iodine. Furthermore, they contain macronutrients such as proteins and polysaccharides (which are a good source of fibre). Since these are substrates that can be utilised by gut microbes, the prebiotic potential of seaweed is of growing interest. The development of a novel nutraceutical harnessing the power of seaweed bioactives in conjunction with more established gut microbiota-targeted dietary interventions (such as prebiotics and probiotics), presents an exciting opportunity to apply a precision nutrition approach in developing an optimised food product to support gut health.

We hypothesise that a seaweed-containing, gut microbiota-targeted nutraceutical, will positively alter the composition and activity of the human gut microbiota, resulting in improved gut health.
Objectives
1)To characterise the nutritional composition of a range of commercially-relevant seaweed species, then collect and preserve material from the Aberystwyth locality to generate mixed-species preparations for incorporation into the novel nutraceutical.

2)To assess the impact of candidate nutraceutical components on the gut microbiota in vitro, using a laboratory human gut model system. Preparations from Obj.1 will be used a) individually as sole carbon feedstocks, b) in conjunction with established gut microbiota targeted interventions such as probiotics and prebiotics, and c) incorporated into a food product (e.g. beverage, cereal bar). Molecular phenotyping of the gut model samples will provide assessment of whether the seaweed-containing intervention favourably alters gut microbial composition and metabolic activity.

3)Based on Obj.2 outcomes, to progress the newly developed nutraceutical as a food product, including production at scale, for use in Obj.4.

4)To assess the impact of the nutraceutical food product in vivo, by conducting a randomised, non-placebo controlled, 4-arm parallel (seaweed, probiotics, prebiotics, and combination), 8-week dietary intervention trial in 100 healthy volunteers, i.e. 25 on each arm. This study number is based upon our previous prebiotic trials and is powered based on a 0.2 log10 increase in bifidobacteria (primary endpoint measure). The secondary endpoint will be clinical measures of gut health (e.g. bowel habits from self-reported questionnaire data) which will be regressed against microbial and metabolic profiles acquired from stool, blood and urine samples collected at baseline and endline using molecular phenotyping approaches. These results will improve knowledge of microbes as well as biomarkers/molecular pathways involved in changes to gut health as a result of the nutraceutical intervention.

Through the use of a human intervention study, we will be able to better determine effectiveness of a newly developed nutraceutical in altering gut microbial composition to modulate function, and ultimately, improve gut health. This novel proposal combines state-of-the-art analytical technologies to conduct a holistic assessment of dietary intervention on the entire system. This would lead to possible health claims for the food products used, as well as major scientific, clinical and societal interest.