Impact of diet-related metabolic variation on incident cardiometabolic disease outcomes

Preliminary findings show that i) dietary habits shape plasma metabolomics profile, and ii) the utility and reproducibility of dietary metabolite scores as objective assessment of dietary intakes, compared to conventional tools, i.e., self-reported food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data. These metabolite scores associated cross-sectionally with cardiometabolic risk and outcomes (e.g., insulin sensitivity, T2D, carotid-IMT) within the HELIOS study1.

However, cross-sectional studies are limited in design and strength to derive cause-and-effect relationships. As lifestyle factors contribute largely to cardiometabolic disease aside from genetic factors, it is important to relate dietary habits with disease development. Therefore, we aim to evaluate longitudinal relationships between dietary intakes (derived from metabolite scores and from FFQ) with incident CVD and T2D.

Through electronic health records (EHR) linkage, we will identify participants who went on to develop incident CVD and T2D from their baseline visit, through available routine records of diagnoses, risk factors, laboratory investigations, imaging, prescriptions and/or related death cause. Incident cases will be linked to their respective HELIOS (dietary, metabolic, genetic and phenotypic) datasets to perform longitudinal associations.

These findings would enable better prediction of future CVD and T2D in Asian populations, and inform clinical decision making and personalised interventions for reducing disease risk.