Nutritional Biomarkers
Nutritional biomarkers generally reflect the nutritional status with respect to the intake or metabolism of dietary constituents. These markers may reflect a direct the relationship to dietary intake and can be independently assessed. They are either the dietary nutrients themselves in the body fluids such as blood plasma, urine, milk or saliva or direct end-products of the dietary substances.
However, nutritional biomarkers are influenced not only by dietary aspects but as well by physiological conditions such as gender and age or genetical and environmental factors. More importantly nutritional biomarkers are influenced by acute or chronic diseases.
Our aim is to evaluate in a systematic approach the biological relevance of the interaction of these confounding factors on quantitative and qualitative aspects of nutritional biomarkers. Furthermore, the possibility to use nutritional biomarkers as markers of disease progression will investigated.
Specific areas of interest are gender specificity, kidney function, inflammation, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.