Tracking Personalised Gut Microbiome and Glycemia Responses to Asian Diets
Tracking Personalised Gut Microbiome and Glycemia Responses to Asian Diets - A Scalable Community Based Approach
Yong, G., Tay, C., Ha, S., Tachibana, J., See, E., Tjahyo, A. S., & Lim, J. (2025). Tracking personalised gut microbiome and glycemia responses to Asian diets: A scalable community-based approach [Poster presentation]. Precision Public Health Asia Conference 2025
AIM
Describe a primarily remote community-based full feeding dietary intervention with participants drawn from the general population.
INTRODUCTION
Diet and the gut microbiome play key complementary roles in the prevention and management of many modern diseases. Diet-microbiome interactions and their effects on metabolic health remain poorly understood in Asians. To address this knowledge gap, we track 200 community-based, clinically healthy subjects from the general population over a 9-day, primarily remote full-feeding dietary intervention to 1) Identify factors that influence postprandial glycaemic and lipemic responses to nutritionally varied and common Asian foods, and 2) Quantify the acute effects of standard versus healthier Singaporean diets on gut microbiome and metabolic health outcomes. Participants were tracked for sleep, physical activity and postprandial blood glucose and lipids. Stool, saliva, blood, urine and skin tapes were collected throughout the study and will be analysed for metagenomic and/or metabolomic profiles. Preliminary data demonstrated inter-individual baseline variation in BMI, sleep quality, stress and body constitution among clinically healthy subjects. Ongoing efforts are focused on identifying microbiome, diet, metabolic and clinical features that explain such baseline and post-prandial variation, which in turn will help develop actionable precision nutrition solutions tailored to Asians.
METHODS
200 clinically healthy Asian adults (21-60 years old) were fully fed breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout a 9-day period with nutritionally varied Asian meals representative of both conventional and healthier habitual diets in Singapore. Participants were tracked continuously for sleep, physical activity and postprandial blood glucose and lipids. Stool, saliva, blood, urine and skin tapes were collected throughout the study and analysed for metagenomic and/or metabolomic profiles.
RESULTS
Conventional and healthier Singapore diets rapidly changed gut microbiome profiles within 48 hours. Following consumption of healthier local meals for four days, participants challenged with a high fat, high carbohydrate Metabolic Challenge meal demonstrated significantly improved PPGR load despite longer recovery times. Participant baseline visceral adiposity positively correlated with PPGR amplitude but not recovery.
CONCLUSION
PPGR among Asians is highly personalised - baseline visceral adiposity may serve as a biomarker to identify individuals at risk of poorer PPGR. Healthier Asian diets significantly improved gut and metabolic health within a short time window of four days or less. Further study, including of temporal changes in gut microbiome and metabolic features, is needed to elucidate factors that explain response variation.
