BiomeBakery Project

BiomeBakery: A Randomised Controlled Parallel Trial to Investigate the Cognitive, Affective, Inflammatory and Metabolic Effects of Chronic Prebiotic-fortified Functional Bakery Product Intervention in Older Adults

This study aims to investigate the chronic effects of prebiotic fibre-fortified functional bakery product on cognitive, affective, inflammatory, metabolic, and anthropometric outcomes in healthy adults aged 60-75 years with mild to moderate subjective cognitive complaints.

This study will employ a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled parallel design to investigate the chronic effects of an 12 week prebiotic fibre-fortified functional bakery product on cognitive, affective, inflammatory, metabolic, and anthropometric outcomes in healthy older adults with mild to moderate subjective cognitive complaints.

Seventy four participants will be randomised (1:1 ratio, matched by age, sex, and fibre intake) to Intervention or Placebo groups where they will be consuming a prebiotic fibre-fortified functional bakery product (containing 10g prebiotic fibre/day) or a regular bakery product (containing 0g prebiotic fibre/day), respectively, for 12-weeks. Outcome measures will be acquired before and after a 12-week chronic supplementation. These will include cognitive measures of overall cognitive functioning, immediate and delayed verbal memory, executive functions; affective measures of depression and anxiety symptomatology; gastrointestinal symptomatology; inflammatory measure of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP); metabolic measures of lipid profiles (total-C, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglycerides), Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure; and anthropometric measures of height, weight, hip and waist circumference.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Aging between 60-75 years old
• Having normal vision and hearing
• Having a normal body mass index (BMI<30)
• Having mild to moderate subjective cognitive complaints
• Consuming bread (5 or more times a week)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Smoking
• Having food allergies
• Following restrictive and/or unbalanced diets
• Changing dietary intake majorly in past month
• Being diagnosed with any psychiatric or neurologic conditions (e.g. schizophrenia, depression, dementia) including eating disorders
• Being diagnosed with any cardiometabolic diseases (including type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease), or suffering from hypertension or thrombosis related disorders or suffer from thyroid disease
• Being anaemic
• Currently taking anticoagulants, antiplatelet medication, antidepressants, proton-pump inhibitors
• Currently consuming prebiotic or probiotic supplements
• Continuous antibiotic use for > 3 days within 1 month prior to enrolment
• Continuous use of weight-loss drug for > 1 month before screening
• Having a significant gastrointestinal (GI) condition affecting absorption including (but not limited to) inflammatory bowel disease; total colectomy or bariatric surgery; irritable bowel disease; end stage renal disease; active cancer, or treatment for any cancer, in last 3 years
• Having a high fibre intake defined as > 20g of fibre/day
• Wheat and/or gluten intolerance and having coeliac disease