In the doctoral thesis by Stefania Noerman, MSc, various blood metabolites, including lipids and those derived from the gut microbiota, were shown to be associated with both lifestyle factors and the indicators of metabolic health. In the thesis, metabolic health was represented by the risk factors and the incidence of type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease. The thesis examined how they associated with lifestyle factors, such as diet and psychological well-being. The public examination will be held in English at Kuopio Campus and online on 2 October 2020.
Metabolic diseases constitute the top global causes of death. Coronary artery disease accounts for almost one-third of the deaths. Similarly, one among 11 people has type 2 diabetes around the globe. Lifestyle factors, such as diet and psychological stress, have been proposed to play an equally important role as genetic factors in determining the risk of these metabolic diseases. However, the contribution of each of these lifestyle factors is not well established. The application of nontargeted metabolomics approach now can provide a comprehensive metabolite profile related to certain changes in health status of individuals. It hence may open the possibility to generate hypotheses on the link between lifestyle factors and metabolic health.
The doctoral thesis aimed to evaluate the molecular links between lifestyle factors and metabolic health in order to provide novel hypotheses on the potential mechanisms. Specifically, the thesis discusses the application of nontargeted metabolomics to characterise potential molecules and molecular pathways involved in the association between dietary factors, psychological stress, and well-being, and the risk of getting type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease. The dietary factors examined in this thesis were represented by the consumption of eggs to exemplify a single dietary component and adherence to the healthy Nordic diet as an example of the whole dietary pattern. The study populations consisted of subsets of prospective cohort Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study and multi-center Elixir lifestyle intervention study. The nontargeted metabolic profiling employed in the thesis projects utilised a combined system of liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, which enables extensive analysis of metabolites with various chemical properties.
The results highlighted both previously established and novel associations between some metabolites with lifestyle factors, the indicators of physiological and psychological well-being, and the risk of metabolic diseases. Lipid metabolites, such as phospholipids, plasmalogens, and other lipophilic molecules seemed important in the link between examined lifestyle factors and metabolic profile, despite differences in the lipid species and the inconsistent associations across studies. The results also support the hypothesis of shared mechanisms between physiological and psychological well-being, tightly connected with inflammation. The association between gut microbial metabolites and the risk factors of metabolic diseases highlights the possible contribution of gut microbiota, as well as other factors than diet, in the interaction between adherence to the healthy Nordic diet and incidence of coronary artery disease. “These findings once again emphasised the importance of lifestyle management to maintain metabolic health. However, further investigations are still needed to reveal the mechanisms how these lifestyle factors would affect the metabolic profile of each individual, especially related to the risk of developing metabolic diseases”, Noerman said.
The doctoral dissertation of Stefania Noerman, MSc, entitled “Finding molecular links between lifestyle factors and indicators of metabolic health - a nontargeted metabolic profiling approach”, will be examined at the Faculty of Health Sciences. The Opponent in the public examination will be Professor Julian Griffin of the Imperial College London, and the Custos will be Professor Kati Hanhineva of the University of Eastern Finland.
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