PRIMA Section 2 -2018 Programm / FCT; MED4Youth - Mediterranean Enriched Diet for tackling Youth Obesity

Overview

Project Summary

MED4Youth’s main objective is to strengthen the link between the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and the health benefits against youth obesity and associated cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, identifying the positive effects exerted by an energy-restricted MD including healthy products from the Mediterranean basin (hummus, mixed nuts and pomegranate) and sourdough bread.

The novelty of MED4Youth project relies on, firstly, a multicentre clinical and MD-based study (4 months) including ICT educational tools specifically targeting 240 obese/great overweight ≥90th percentile adolescents (13-17y) from three different Mediterranean countries (Spain, Portugal and Italy); and secondly, on the application of omics technologies and a system biology approach, to elucidate whether the MD can shape the gut microbiota and gut-derived metabolites and unravel the mechanisms by which MD exerts its beneficial effects against youth obesity and CVD risk factors.

The project is coordinated by Eurecat with the participation of NOVAPAN (Spain), Shikma Field Crops (Israel), the University of Parma (Italy), the Scientific Food Center (Jordan) and the University of Coimbra (Portugal).

Main Goals

MED4Youth project aims to demonstrate how an energy-restricted Mediterranean-style diet intervention is effective against youth obesity and reveal the mechanisms through which the Mediterranean Diet exerts the beneficial effects through a holistic omics-based system biology approach.

Project Details