On September 27, 2024, Nature Food, a Nature journal, published online the latest research results of Professor Liu Gang's team from the School of Public Health, entitled “Proteomic signatures of healthy dietary patterns are associated with lower risks of major chronic diseases and mortality”. The study found that proteomic signatures of 8 healthy dietary patterns were significantly associated with the risks of all-cause mortality and major chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, some key proteins, such as FSTL3 (follistatin-related protein 3), played an important mediating role in the associations of multiple dietary patterns with risks of major chronic diseases and mortality. These findings indicate that proteomic signatures have the potential to complement traditional dietary assessments and deepen our understanding of the relationships between dietary patterns and chronic diseases.
Suboptimal dietary factors may contribute to an estimated 255 million disability-adjusted life years lost and 11 million deaths globally each year. Promoting healthy dietary patterns can be a potent and cost-effective strategy for preventing chronic diseases. Investigation of individual foods or nutrients may inadequately reflect the real-world habitual diet, providing limited implications about the role of an optimal diet in maintaining overall health. In contrast, dietary patterns, incorporating the synergistic and accumulative effects of diverse foods, nutrients and beverages, serve as effective tools for illustrating the comprehensive impact of diet on health risks. Increasing studies indicate that validated biomarkers offer a promising and objective alternative for quantifying dietary intake and may serve as an important complement to traditional dietary assessment methods. The inherent dynamic nature makes the plasma proteome a valuable resource for health assessment, diagnosing and predicting disease, and identifying therapeutic targets. However, it remains unclear whether proteomic signatures could be an important complement to dietary assessment. Furthermore, the associations between diet-related proteomic signatures and the risks of major chronic diseases and mortality remain unknown. In addition, whether proteins could mediate the relationships of healthy dietary pattern scores with the incidence of multiple chronic diseases and mortality remains under-investigated.
The study calculated eight healthy dietary pattern scores, namely, the Mediterranean Diet (MED), Alternative Healthy Dietary Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to stop Hypertension Diet Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND), healthful Plant-Based Index (hPDI), reversed energy-adjusted diet inflammatory index (rE-DII), healthy low-carbohydrate diet (HLCD), and healthy low-fat diet (HLFD). The analyses included 21,892 participants with proteomic data (54.3% women; mean [s.d.] age, 57.9 [8.2] years). Over a median follow-up period ranging from 10.4 to 11.9 years, 627 cases of diabetes, 3,215 of cardiovascular disease, 309 of dementia, 640 of chronic respiratory disease, 609 of chronic kidney disease, 1,806 of cancer and 1,585 total deaths were documented. The main findings are as follows:
1. Of the 2,915 proteins, the number showing significant associations with the 8 dietary patterns ranged from 595 to 1,177. Using KEGG methods, proteins associated with 8 dietary patterns were robustly enriched into those pathways mainly related to lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis, immune function, inflammation, and cell proliferation, differentiation and survival. In addition, 378 proteins were consistently significant across all 8 dietary patterns, mainly enriched into those pathways that include viral protein interaction with cytokine and cytokine receptor, lysosome, and complement and coagulation cascades.
2. The study identified 8 proteomic signatures that reflect adherence and proteome response to healthy dietary patterns. Notably, these 8 proteomic signatures were prospectively associated with the risks of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, chronic kidney diseases and cancers, along with longer life expectancy, even after adjusting for corresponding dietary patterns.
3. In terms of life expectancy, at age 45, compared with an individual in the lowest 10th percentile, an individual in the highest 10th percentile gained an estimated life expectancy of 0.35 to 3.80 years for 8 healthy dietary patterns and 3.74 to 16.72 years for their corresponding proteomic signatures.
4. Some proteins, such as FSTL3 (follistatin-related protein 3), were found to be significantly mediating significant associations of multiple healthy dietary patterns with major chronic diseases and mortality. The discovery of these proteins offers new scientific insights into the mechanisms underlying the associations between healthy dietary patterns and the risks of major chronic diseases and mortality.
Leveraging data from a large prospective cohort, this study identified 8 proteomic signatures that measured adherence and proteomic response to corresponding dietary pattern scores, which were significantly associated with incidence of multiple chronic diseases and longer expectancy. These findings suggest that proteome signatures show potential in complementing traditional dietary assessments and potentially enabling personalized nutrition interventions. Zhu Kai (doctoral graduate student) and Rui Li (doctoral graduate student) from the School of Public Health, were the co-first authors, and Prof. Gang Liu was the corresponding author. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key R&D Program of China.
Related Links:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01059-x
