The funding agency set a mandatory deadline for the study in order to be able to conclude the project.

This is a multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-arm dietary intervention study. In total, 800 men and women at risk for Metabolic Syndrome (MS) will be recruited. Subjects will be eligible to the study if they present with two to four of the MS diagnostic criteria, at least one of them being:

• fasting triglycerides ≥150 mg/dL but ≤400 mg/dL OR
• HDL-cholesterol ≤50 mg/mL in women, ≤ 40mg/mL in men (with fasting triglycerides ≥110 mg/dL).

Each of the four recruiting centres will recruit 200 volunteers. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of four groups to receive either:

• Dairy BEF + egg placebo + bakery placebo
• Egg BEF + dairy placebo + bakery placebo
• Bakery BEF + dairy placebo + egg placebo
• Dairy, egg and bakery placebo

Participants will be required to consume all three of the allocated products each day for 12 weeks.

Eligible volunteers will be included and randomly allocated to one of the four groups. At baseline, 6 weeks and 12 weeks after inclusion, each participant will visit the recruiting centre for clinical and biochemical investigations. At 3 weeks and 9 weeks participants will complete questionnaires relating to their satisfaction with the food products, compliance to consumption of the study food products, and any gastrointestinal side effects or health-related adverse events that have occurred in the previous 3 weeks.

At each recruiting centre 40 participants will be required to take part in additional activities, these are: stool sample collection, adipose tissue aspiration, body composition analysis by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) and assessment of physical activity.

Inclusion Criteria:

• subjects presenting with two to four diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome, at least one of them being elevated fasting triglycerides OR HDL-cholesterol ≤50 mg/mL in women, ≤ 40mg/mL in men (with fasting triglycerides ≥110 mg/dL).

Exclusion Criteria:

• subjects with five clinical criteria for metabolic syndrome
• Regular drug therapy with impact on serum lipids;
• Diabetes (fasting glucose > 1.26 g/L, or anti-diabetic treatment);
• Celiac disease, lactose intolerance, allergy to milk or egg proteins;
• Antibiotic treatment within the last 3 months;
• Recent history of cancer or cancer treatment (less than 2 years);
• Active or recently diagnosed intestinal malabsorption;
• Diagnosis of organ failure
• Familial dyslipidemia (TG ≥ 4.5 mmol/l or 400 mg/dl);
• Illegal drug use or chronic alcoholism or smoking;
• Intensive physical exercise (≥ 5 hour/week);
• Consumption of nutritional supplements containing DHA, BG or AC;
• History of allergy or intolerance to any components used in BEF;
• Women who are pregnant or lactating;

Individual case report forms are available to collect study data into electronic form from all the recruiting centres. A central electronic database has been elaborated to capture, validate and manage the entered data by means of a variety of edit checks (e.g., subjecting the data to range checks, valid value checks, cross-checks, and manual review) that provide feedback to those entering/providing the data.