Are you sticking to your diet? A simple blood test will determine the result

Washington A simple blood test can help determine whether a person is following a prescribed diet say scientists suggesting that the method can help improve the accuracy of clinical trialsClinical trials of diets and their health impacts are often plagued by participants poor adherence to assigned diets which can make it difficult or even impossible to detect the true effects of those dietsThe approach described in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition could provide an objective and relatively easytoobtain measure of dietary adherence potentially greatly reducing the uncertainty of dietary intake estimatesScientists from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US demonstrated their approach by showing that the levels of dozens of metabolites in the blood differed significantly between treatment and control groups enrolled in a clinical trial of the blood pressurelowering DASH Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension dietThe DASH diet emphasises fruits and vegetables and restricts red meat sodium and sweetsWe can now consider these metabolites as candidate biomarkers for assessing adherence to the DASH diet in future nutrition research studies and oneday clinicians might use these markers to monitor what their patients eat said Casey M Rebholz an assistant professor at Johns HopkinsDietary adherence in clinical trials and even in ordinary clinical practice traditionally has been assessed by asking participants to keep track of what they eat Human nature being what it is such selfreports are not always accurateSome researchers have sought an objective measure of dietary adherence by testing urine samples from participants but the requirement for each participant to collect samples over one or more days for testing is burdensome and urine analysis covers a very limited set of nutrientsResearchers decided to evaluate a potentially more informative and patientfriendly method based on blood samplesThey demonstrated their approach using frozen stored blood samples that had been drawn from participants during the landmark 1997 study of the DASH diet That study found that the DASH diet compared to a control diet reflective of what the average American eats significantly reduced blood pressureThe trial design in which participants were provided with all study meals ensured that dietary adherence was measured accurately meaning that the trial data could be used later to test new measures such as blood metabolitesThe scientists analysed blood samples from 329 DASH trial participants for levels of metabolites lipids amino acids and other smallmolecule byproducts of the bodys biochemical activity that exist in everyones blood and reflect food consumptionResearchers found 97 metabolites whose levels differed significantly between the DASH dietassigned participants and the control groupThey also identified 67 metabolites whose average levels differed significantly between the DASH diet group and a third study arm the fruits and vegetables group The latter was assigned to eat a diet richer than average in fruit and vegetables but not as rich in lowfat dairy as the DASH dietAlso read New Blood test that can diagnose TB 2 years in advance discoveredResearchers found evidence that for each dietary comparison a set of 10 metabolites with the sharpest dietrelated differences was sufficient to collectively distinguish the two groupsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever