Scientific abstract

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Abstract

Nutrikinetics is a new research area, researching the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) of food compounds in the human superorganism. Current nutritional metabolomics studies focus on analyzing the static effects of food compounds in the human body. Nutrikinetics, however, searches for quantitative information on the dynamic effects of food compounds in the human body. Nutrikinetics is also important for studying the interactions between the human metabolome and the gut microbiome, since the gut microbiome has an important role in metabolizing food compounds. The quantitative information that nutrikinetics acquires, takes on the form of nutrikinetic signatures. A nutrikinetic signature is a short set of quantitative parameters summarizing the distribution of food compounds, and associated metabolites, in the human body. Two studies are of importance in this thesis. The first study investigates how gut-mediated metabolites, which form after a polyphenol intervention, are excreted in urine. The second study investigates metabolites, which also form after a polyphenol intervention, in blood plasma. Kinetic models from these two studies where used to develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI). This GUI, also named the NutriGUI, can be used as a starting tool to educate students in nutrikinetic concepts. Students can, for instance, learn how to distinguish between different phenotypes by evaluating nutrikinetic signatures.

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