The New Zealand National Science Challenge (NSC) program is designed to address the biggest science-based challenges within the country as identified by government, researchers and the general public. Intended to have both a national and global footprint, the NSC High Value Nutrition (HVN) program has 5 priority research platforms comprising metabolic, gut and immune health plus food and consumer science. The Peak Nutrition for Metabolic Health (PANaMAH) platform is investigating metabolic susceptibility and resilience in the face of weight gain and obesity, with the long term aim of identifying nutrition interventions to prevent dysglycaemia and type 2 diabetes (T2D).
Apparently slim individuals may be more susceptible to development of T2D than those obese but resilient due to lipid overspill from safe peripheral stores into risky ectopic sites such as liver and pancreas1. The thin on the outside but fat on the inside ‘TOFI’ profile may explain why Asian Chinese and Indian populations are reported to be at greater risk of poor metabolic health than Caucasian counterparts at the same BMI and younger age2. TOFI_Asia aims to determine the metabolic profile that characterises and predicts susceptibility and resilience to T2D, in individuals with and without the TOFI profile, including early metabolomic biomarkers that may predict later glucose response.
200 Asian Chinese and 200 European Caucasian adults (18 – 70 years; overweight BMI 25 – 50 kg/m2) will be enrolled into the TOFI_Asia study. T2D risk will be determined from HbA1c, and predictors of risk identified through (i) anthropometry and body composition using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA, % fat) and 3 Tesla Chemical shift magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, pancreatic and liver fat) (ii) established plasma markers of metabolic risk including biochemistry, peptides, cytokines (iii) untargeted metabolomics and (iv) cardiorespiratory fitness using the YMCA submaximal fitness test3.