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<p>Our team identified metabolite profile distinctions across varieties of 'cooked' whole grain rice, rice bran, and dry beans, that will help us identify related metabolic byproducts in humans. Moreover, our scientific knowledge of changes in liver gene expression and microbiota in response to elevated bean consumption from our animal studies also provided key insights into food metabolism that influences biomarker identification and detection. </p><p>Aim 1: The control meals/snacks will yield profiles for common foods (e.g. fatty acids, specific amino acids) that are not specific to Rice Bran (RB) and Navy Beans (NB), and will provide a strong comparison for evaluating which RB or NB constituents add or replace small molecules detected in control meals and snacks.</p><p>Aim 2: Blood, urine and stool metabolomes from BENEFIT (Beans/Bran Enriching Nutritional Eating For Intestinal health Trial) participants will reveal candidate dietary biomarker profiles specific for RB or NB intake.</p><p>Aim 3: Blood plasma metabolomes of children that completed the one-month dietary intervention study will reveal candidate dietary biomarker exposure profiles for RB or NB intake.</p>
Whole grain brown rice, rice bran, and dry beans are inexpensive, healthy staple foods with low U.S. consumption. Numerous evidences exist for promoting increased consumption of brown rice and dry beans for chronic disease prevention , yet prospective evaluation of health outcomes remains difficult due to lack of reliable dietary intake biomarkers. Our completed, short-term feeding studies with fixed amounts of rice bran and navy beans in children with elevated cholesterol and adult colorectal cancer survivors provide a novel opportunity for assessing dietary biomarkers of intake. Rice and beans merit biomarkers for nutritional assessment without reliance on self-reported intakes for whole grains and legumes during nutrition assessments as wheat, barley, rye and soybeans have been studied in dietary patterns and for relationships with disease risk. A major challenge with validating dietary biomarkers is that an elevated level of consumption is often required for reliable quantification, and emerging evidence supports that the overall dietary pattern (e.g. vegetarian, omnivore) can influence the profile of metabolites detected. The identification and validation of dietary biomarkers using metabolomics is an emerging field of investigation with broad-spectrum applications of health importance, and is the major focus of the research strategy for developing rice bran and navy bean biomarkers in children and adults herein. These studies will set the foundation for evaluating Rice Bran (RB) and Navy Beans (NB) intake to other important diet-disease relationships.