Lipid metabolism can be influenced by diet, and fatty fish, berries, fruits and vegetables are thought to help aid lipid metabolism balance in the body. But when disorders occur this can lead to common health problems, such as ageing, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
The human body also produces phospholipids that are thought to mediate the health-promoting effects but their mechanisms of action are unknown, according to Finnish research organisation VTT which is launching the project, called ETHERPATHS.
“The project develops computer-assisted models that emulate the changes in lipid metabolism brought about by eating fish and vegetable oil, berries, fruits and vegetables,” says VTT.
This should help promote research in the health effects of foods and development of foodstuffs, as the models used will make it easier to combine data from animal studies and cell-level data in the interpretation of research data from clinical trials.
In addition, the results of the project and the tools that are developed during its course will eventually be available to non-food companies and research institutions that develop diagnostics of health and disease.
ETHERPATHS is part of the EU FP7 Cooperation Work Programme: Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology programme, and 10 other partner organisations – universities and companies – come from the UK, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Italy and Switzerland.
The project will run until 2012, and has a budget of €8m. It is being coordinated by VTT research professor Matej Oresic.