What happens when you eat fermented milk products for breakfast? Hopefully, you will feel full and ready to meet the day’s challenges – but what actually happens in your body when fermented soured milk products are digested?  

This is one of the major questions for food researchers all over the world: how does the human body react to intake of specific foods, and what is the importance of diets to our health? At Aarhus University, researchers are leaders within the area and during the last ten years, they have produced knowledge on e.g. why cheese is healthy and why bread rich in fibre is good for us.  

The method applied by the researchers is known as metabolomics. When the body metabolises nutrients such as carbohydrates, protein and fat, different types of molecules are created that circulate in the blood and are secreted via the urine. The researchers will examine whether a certain kind of food is related to a certain change in the body by analysing and mapping the contents of these molecules.  

Eating cheese is good for you 

Professor Hanne Christine Bertram from the Department of Food Science is one of the pioneers within this area. She was one of the first Danish researchers to apply this particular measuring technique in food research, and was recently awarded the EliteForsk Prize for her research.  

- There is an incredibly huge focus on the understanding of the relation between diets and human health. We are currently examining new opportunities to improve and apply this method, and the metabolomics method is an excellent basis for investigating new and complex foods or effects in the body, explains Hanne Christine Bertram. 

The connection between dairy product intake and health is one of the focus areas in recent years.  

Researchers from Aarhus University are participating in research projects to investigate the background for the beneficial effects of dairy products. An examination of urine and faeces demonstrated that young and healthy males who consumed a diet rich in cheese had a higher excretion of the short-chain fatty acid butyrate, or butyric acid. This is particularly interesting, as receptors for butyric acid can activate the connection between the gut and the brain. In addition, butyric acid is known for activating the metabolism, reducing body fat percentage and contributing to the prevention of obesity. 

Dietary studies are increasingly valid  

Another metabolomics focus area is dietary cohort studies in which test persons are to report what and how much they eat. Such information can be uncertain as the test persons, consciously or unconsciously, forget to register one or more foods or have difficulties assessing their actual intake. By identifying so-called biomarkers for intake of e.g. coffee or chicken, researchers try to establish objective methods to determine whether a person has eaten a certain type of food within the past 24 hours. This is done via a urine sample.

In the future, researchers from Aarhus University will continue their efforts within this area, and have a closer look at the importance of activity of the gut microflora in relation to nutrition and health.

The researchers are presently using metabolomics to study how various gut microflora metabolise carbohydrates from milk. This is being carried out in a project in which PhD student Louise M. A. Jakobsen is collaborating with Arla Foods Ingredients and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen.

- We expect to contribute important knowledge with regard to understanding how our gut microflora is affected by these carbohydrates. It is a particularly relevant issue in relation to improving infant formula so it stimulates the growth of probiotic bacteria in the gut of the infant. We know that these bacteria are beneficial to the health, says Louise M. A. Jakobsen.

If you would like to learn more about metabolomics research at Aarhus University, you can read the articles listed below. They focus on how food and health interact.  

For more information:

Read more about the Department of Food Science's metabolomics facilities 

• New research method opens up the possibility of customizing breast milk for premature children in the future
• Cheese is surprisingly healthy
• Whey protein as a weapon in the battle against overweight
• Fibre-rich food is good for you – but why?

Professor Hanne Christine Bertram
Department of Food Science
Email: hannec.bertram@food.au.dk
Telephone: +45 8715 8353