Lars Ove Dragsted

• Professor
• University of Copenhagen

The human gut microbiome is highly personal. However, the contribution of gut physiology and environment to variations in the gut microbiome remains understudied. Here we performed an observational trial using multi-omics to profile microbiome composition and metabolism in 61 healthy adults for 9 consecutive days. We assessed day-to-day changes in...

Precision nutrition requires precise tools to monitor dietary habits. Yet current dietary assessment instruments are subjective, limiting our understanding of the causal relationships between diet and health. Biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) hold promise to increase the objectivity and accuracy of dietary assessment, enabling adjustment for complia...

Introduction Analysis of time-resolved postprandial metabolomics data can improve our understanding of the human metabolism by revealing similarities and differences in postprandial responses of individuals. Traditional data analysis methods often rely on data summaries or univariate approaches focusing on one metabolite at a time. Objectives Our...

In agricultural production, intercropping is a widely used system with many benefits. Lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) is a legume that contains a large variety of plant secondary metabolites, which have multiple functions in the plant, e.g. signalling, nodulation and stress response. An untargeted metabolomics approach was applied to investigate h...

Scope The New Nordic Diet (NND) has been shown to promote weight loss and lower blood pressure amongst obese people. This study investigates blood plasma metabolite and lipoprotein biomarkers differentiating subjects who followed Average Danish Diet (ADD) or NND. The study also evaluates how the individual response to the diet is reflected in the m...

Background Diets rich in whole grains are associated with health benefits. Yet, it remains unclear whether the benefits are mediated by changes in gut function and fermentation. Objective We explored the effects of whole-grain vs. refined-grain diets on markers of colonic fermentation and bowel function, as well as their associations with the gut...

Introduction Uzbekistan is one of the countries with the highest number of diet-related chronic diseases, which is believed to be associated with high animal fat intake. Sheep meat is high in fats (~ 5% in muscle), including saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, and it contains nearly twice the higher amounts of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids...

The predominant source of alcohol in the diet is alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, spirits and liquors, sweet wine, and ciders. Self-reported alcohol intakes are likely to be influenced by measurement error, thus affecting the accuracy and precision of currently established epidemiological associations between alcohol itself, alcoholic bev...

The Nordic diet is characterized by a high content of plant-based food and a limited content of animal and processed food. Intervention studies show with moderate evidence that Nordic diet reduces risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (blood pressure, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol). Observational studies show with weak evidence t...

Alcohol consumption ranging from 1–2 drinks/day associates with a lower risk of coronary heart disease in some studies. The underlying mechanisms are unclear. The Metabolic Imprints of Alcoholic Beverages (MetAl) trial aimed to explore the short-term effects of moderate alcohol consumption on cardiovascular biomarkers. A 2 × 3-week cross-over singl...

Accumulating evidence indicates that gut transit time is a key factor in shaping the gut microbiota composition and activity, which are linked to human health. Both population-wide and small-scale studies have identified transit time as a top covariate contributing to the large interindividual variation in the faecal microbiota composition. Despite...

Background and aims Alcohol consumption increases circulating high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), but HDL protein cargo may better reflect HDL function. This study examined the associations between alcohol intake and HDL subspecies containing or lacking apoC3, apoE, and apoJ in a well-phenotyped cohort. Methods We performed a cross-secti...

Intake of red and processed meat is considered a risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC). Several epidemiological and experimental studies have focused on this potential relationship; however, the findings are inconsistent, and the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. A number of mechanistic pathways have been proposed in an attempt to explain...

Non-communicable diseases are on the rise and are often related to food choices; nutrition affects infectious diseases too. Therefore, there is growing interest in research on public and personal health, as related to food, nutrition behaviour and well-being of consumers throughout the life cycle. These concepts and their relations are complex and...

Background Bile acid diarrhoea is an underdiagnosed disease estimated to affect 1–2% of the general population. Case reports indicate that the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist liraglutide might be an effective treatment for bile acid diarrhoea. We aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of liraglutide for the treatment of bile acid dia...

Purpose Replacing saturated fatty acids (SFA) with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the changes in the serum metabolome after this replacement is not well known. Therefore, the present study aims to identify the metabolites differentiating diets where six energy percentage SFA is r...

The exposure of human DNA to genotoxic compounds induces the formation of covalent DNA adducts, which may contribute to the initiation of carcinogenesis. Liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is a powerful tool for DNA adductomics, a new research field aiming at screening known and unknown DNA adducts in b...

Background and Aims Bile acid malabsorption (BAM) is a debilitating disease characterized by loose stools and high stool frequency. The pathophysiology of BAM is not well-understood. We investigated postprandial enterohepatic and gluco-metabolic physiology, as well as gut microbiome composition and fecal bile acid content in patients with BAM. Met...

Scope: Biomarkers for intake of green leafy vegetables such as spinach could help investigate their health effects. However, only few potential intake markers have been reported in the literature so far. Methods and results: Based on a cross-over study on whole leaf and minced spinach, we investigated changes in metabolites before and after spin...

Cancer may be initiated by covalent modification of DNA by genotoxic molecules coming from diet, environment, inflammation, and other sources. For most of these genotoxicants there is little evidence of their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen for unknown DNA adducts by high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Howe...

Cancer may be initiated by covalent modification of DNA by genotoxic molecules coming from diet, environment, inflammation, and other sources. For most of these genotoxicants there is little evidence of their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen for unknown DNA adducts by high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Howe...

Cancer may be initiated by covalent modification of DNA by genotoxic molecules coming from diet, environment, inflammation, and other sources. For most of these genotoxicants there is little evidence of their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen for unknown DNA adducts by high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Howe...

Cancer may be initiated by covalent modification of DNA by genotoxic molecules coming from diet, environment, inflammation, and other sources. For most of these genotoxicants there is little evidence of their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen for unknown DNA adducts by high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Howe...

Lead Author's Financial Disclosures T.W. has received a Ph.D. scholarship partly sponsored by Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens grant Remaining Ph.D. scholarship sponsored by National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Study Funding Ph.D. scholarship sponsored in part by a Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens grant on biomarkers to...

Context: Moderate alcohol consumption is associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and improvement in cardiovascular risk markers, including lipoproteins and lipoprotein subfractions. Objective: To systematically review the relationship between moderate alcohol intake, lipoprotein subfractions, and related mechanisms. Data...

Background & Aims Intake assessment in multicenter trials is challenging, yet important for accurate outcome evaluation. The present study aimed to characterize a multicenter randomized controlled trial with a healthy Nordic diet (HND) compared to a Control diet (CD) by plasma and urine metabolic profiles and to associate them with cardiometabolic...

Breastfeeding profoundly shapes the infant gut microbiota, which is critical for early life immune development, and the gut microbiota can impact host physiology in various ways, such as through the production of metabolites. However, few breastmilk-dependent microbial metabolites mediating host–microbiota interactions are currently known. Here, we...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) may develop after covalent modification of DNA by exogenous or endogenous genotoxic molecules coming from smoke, meat intake, inflammation or other factors. Several genotoxicants are known to cause DNA damage, but there is little evidence on their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen unknown DN...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) may develop after covalent modification of DNA by exogenous or endogenous genotoxic molecules coming from smoke, meat intake, inflammation or other factors. Several genotoxicants are known to cause DNA damage, but there is little evidence on their identity. DNA adductomics is a new research field, aiming to screen unknown DN...

Meat is highly nutritious and contributes with several essential nutrients which are difficult to obtain in the right amounts from other food sources. Industrially processed meat contains preservatives including salts, possibly exerting negative effects on health. During maturation, some processed meat products develop a specific microbiota, formin...

Background: The gut-liver axis and enterohepatic circulation have gained increasing attention lately. Patients with short bowel syndrome (SBS) are, in fact, human knock-out models that may assist in the understanding of bile acid synthesis and regulation. Objective: We evaluated effect of glepaglutide, a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-2 analo...

Breastfeeding protects against diseases, with potential mechanisms driving this being human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) and the seeding of milk-associated bacteria in the infant gut. In a cohort of 34 mother–infant dyads we analyzed the microbiota and HMO profiles in breast milk samples and infant’s feces. The microbiota in foremilk and hindmilk s...

Background Recent studies demonstrate that a Mediterranean diet has beneficial metabolic effects in metabolic syndrome subjects. Since we have shown that fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from lean donors exerts beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity, in the present trial, we investigated the potential synergistic effects on insulin sensiti...

Prediction of retention times (RTs) is increasingly considered in untargeted metabolomics to complement MS/MS matching for annotation of unidentified peaks. We tested the performance of PredRet (http://predret.org/) to predict RTs for plant food bioactive metabolites in a data sharing initiative containing entry sets of 29–103 compounds (totalling...

Background: Pancreatic cancer is a highly deadly disease with a poor prognosis. There is limited knowledge about prevention of the disease; thus, identification of risk factors is important to reduce the disease incidence. Objective: The aim of the present study was to prospectively investigate associations between incidence of pancreatic cancer...

Scope: Milk powder is commonly consumed throughout the world. However, advanced glycation end products (AGEs) will form in milk powder during thermal processing and long-term storage. We aimed to identify such compounds with potential as new urinary biomarkers of intake of heat-treated skimmed milk powder (HSMP). Methods and results: A parallel...

Background Biomarkers of meat intake hold promise in clarifying the health effects of meat consumption, yet the differentiation between red and white meat remains a challenge. We measure meat intake objectively in a free-living population by applying a newly developed, three-step strategy for biomarker-based assessment of dietary intakes aimed to i...

The gut microbiome has combined with other person-specific information, such as blood parameters, dietary habits, anthropometrics, and physical activity been found to predict personalized postprandial glucose responses (PPGRs) to various foods. Yet, the contributions of specific microbiome taxa, measures of fermentation, and abiotic factors in the...

Seaweeds are a marine source rich in potentially bioactive components, and therefore have attracted attention since the middle of the twentieth century. Accurate and objective assessment of the intake of seaweeds to study their health effects is hampered by a lack of validated intake biomarkers. In this three-armed, randomized, cross-over study, an...

The intestinal microbiota has been linked to the development and prevalence of steatohepatitis in humans. Interestingly, steatohepatitis is significantly lower in individuals taking a plant-based, low-animal-protein diet, which is thought to be mediated by gut microbiota. However, data on causality between these observations in humans is scarce. In...

Objectives: Long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) released from adipocytes inhibit lipolysis through an unclear mechanism. We hypothesized that the LCFA receptor, FFAR4 (GPR120), which is highly expressed in adipocytes could be involved in this feed-back regulation. Methods and results: LC-MS analysis of conditioned media from isoproterenol-stimulated pr...

Purpose We examined the effect on the postprandial plasma metabolome of protein pre-meals before a fat-rich main meal. Methods Two randomized, cross-over meal studies were conducted to test the dose–response effect (0 g, 10 g, 20 g) of a pre-meal with whey protein (WP) (PREMEAL I), and the effect of protein quality (10 g WP, casein, or gluten) and...

Background & Aims Seaweed including brown seaweeds with rich bioactive components may be efficacious for a glycaemic management strategy and appetite control. We investigated the effects of two brown edible seaweeds, Laminaria digitata (LD) and Undaria pinnatifida (UP), on postprandial glucose metabolism and appetite following a starch load in a hu...

Purpose: Autologous blood transfusion is performance enhancing and prohibited in sport but remains difficult to detect. This study explored the hypothesis that an untargeted urine metabolomics analysis can reveal one or more novel metabolites with high sensitivity and specificity for detection of autologous blood transfusion. Methods: In a rando...

Consumption of fruit and vegetable is a key component of a healthy and sustainable diet. However, their accurate dietary assessment remains a challenge. Due to errors in self-reporting methods, the available dietary information is usually biased. Biomarkers of intake constitute objective tools to better reflect the usual or recent consumption of di...

Background and aims Adipose tissue plays a pivotal role in storing excess fat and its composition reflects the history of person’s lifestyle and metabolic health. Broad profiling of lipids with mass spectrometry has potential for uncovering new knowledge on the pathology of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and other related conditions. Here, w...

Purpose Diets with increased protein content are popular strategies for body weight regulation, but the effect of such diets for the colonic luminal environment is unclear. We aimed to investigate the associations between putative colorectal cancer-related markers and total protein intake, plant and animal proteins, and protein from red and process...

A diet-controlled study indicates that metabolic flexibility is an important driver of inter-individual difference in the response to dietary change, and a high flexibility score is a likely health asset.

This study aims to investigate the alteration of human urine metabolome by the diet and to compare the metabolic impact of the nutritionally healthy New Nordic Diet (NND) with an Average Danish Diet (ADD). The NND was designed a decade ago by scientists and chefs, based on local and sustainable foods, including fish, shellfish, vegetables, roots, f...

Heat treatment is a widely used method for food processing, and the compounds formed by heat-processes may serve as biomarkers of heated food intake in nutrition studies. Therefore, we aimed to characterize the differential metabolic signatures resulting from intake of different potato products and identify potential intake biomarkers. In a randomi...

Background: Observational studies have documented lower risks of coronary heart disease and diabetes among moderate alcohol consumers relative to abstainers, but only a randomized clinical trial can provide conclusive evidence for or against these associations. Aim: The purpose of this study was to describe the rationale and design of the Modera...

Autologous blood transfusion (ABT) is illegal for competing athletes but misuse remains difficult to detect. Thus, the development of novel and sensitive methods is warranted. In this study, we explored whether ABT causes a shift of the urine metabolome. The hypothesis was that an untargeted metabolomics analysis of urine is able to identify novel...

Objectives This study aimed to explore the effects of an isocaloric Mediterranean diet (MD) intervention on metabolic health, gut microbiome and systemic metabolome in subjects with lifestyle risk factors for metabolic disease. Design Eighty-two healthy overweight and obese subjects with a habitually low intake of fruit and vegetables and a sedent...

Objective: Insulin resistance develops prior to the onset of overt type 2 diabetes, making its early detection vital. Direct accurate evaluation is currently only possible with complex examinations like the stable isotope-based hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp (HIEC). Metabolomic profiling enables the detection of thousands of plasma metabolites,...

Purpose Fiber rich foods and dairy products have been suggested to be associated with breast cancer prognosis, though existing research is limited and either report on pre- or post-diagnostic dietary intake in relation to breast cancer prognosis. We investigated the associations between intake of whole grain (WG) and dairy products assessed both pr...

Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 2020, 64, 1900977 DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201900977 In article 1900977 by Ceyda Tugba Pekmez and co‐workers, infants at five months of age with excessive weight gain receive breast milk with lower human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) diversity, lower levels of α‐linolenic acid, oleic acid, and some phospholipid species. The breast milk p...

Breastfeeding profoundly shapes the infant gut microbiota, which is critical for early life immune development. However, few breastmilk-dependent microbial metabolites mediating host-microbiota interactions are currently known. We here demonstrate that breastmilk-promoted Bifidobacterium species convert aromatic amino acids (tryptophan, phenylalani...

The chemical composition of feces plays an important role in human metabolism. Metabolomics and lipidomics are valuable tools for screening the metabolite composition in feces. Here we set out to describe fecal metabolite composition in healthy participants in frozen stools. Frozen stool samples were collected from 10 healthy volunteers and cryogen...

Background and aims: Adipose tissue plays a pivotal role in storing excess fat and its composition reflects the history of person's lifestyle and metabolic health. Broad profiling of lipids with mass spectrometry has potential for uncovering new knowledge on the pathology of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and other related conditions. Here,...

Meat, including fish and shellfish, represents a valuable constituent of most balanced diets. Consumption of different types of meat and fish has been associated with both beneficial and adverse health effects. While white meats and fish are generally associated with positive health outcomes, red and especially processed meats have been associated...

Scope: We aimed to identify breastmilk components associated with fecal concentration of SCFAs and to investigate whether they differ between infants with high weight gain (HW) and normal weight gain (NW). Methods and results: Breastmilk and fecal samples were collected from mother-infant dyads with HW (n = 11) and NW (n = 15) at 5 and 9 months...

A healthy dietary pattern is associated with a lower risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and reduced inflammation. To explore this at the molecular level, we investigated the effect of a Nordic diet (ND) on changes in the gene expression profiles of inflammatory and lipid-related genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of individuals with...

The gut microbiota helps us digest food and has been associated with both good health and risk of disease. Although compositions of the gut microbiota are highly divergent, the gut microbiota exhibits a high level of functional redundancy making it difficult to reliably link gut microbiome patterns to health and diet across individuals. Thus, there...

Seaweeds are marine macroalgae, some of which are edible. They are rich in specific dietary fibers and also contain other characteristic biological constituents. Biological activities have been investigated mainly in animal studies, while very few results are available from human studies. Biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) specific to seaweed could p...

While conventional nutrition research has yielded biomarkers such as doubly labeled water for energy metabolism and 24-h urinary nitrogen for protein intake, a critical need exists for additional, equally robust biomarkers that allow for objective assessment of specific food intake and dietary exposure. Recent advances in high-throughput MS combine...

Introduction The chemical composition of feces plays an important role in human metabolism. Metabolomics and lipidomics are valuable tools for screening the metabolite composition in feces. Here we set out to describe fecal metabolite composition in healthy participants in frozen stools. Methods Frozen stool samples were collected from 10 healthy...

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) have been implicated in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We aimed to determine the associations of urinary carboxymethyl-lysine (CML) and methylglyoxal-hydroimidazolone (MG-H1) levels with cardiometabolic parameters in metabolically healthy obese women. Anthropometric, glycemi...

Background: Banana is one of the most widely consumed fruits in the world. However, information regarding its health effects is scarce. Biomarkers of banana intake would allow a more accurate assessment of its consumption in nutrition studies. Objectives: Using an untargeted metabolomics approach, we aimed to identify the banana-derived metaboli...

Scope Biomarkers of red meat may clarify the relationship between meat intake and health. Herein we discover biomarkers of intake for three types of meat with varying heme content and further evaluate candidate biomarkers for red and general meat based on defined validation criteria. Methods and results In a randomized cross‐over meal study health...

Metabolomic studies with a time-series design are widely used for discovery and validation of biomarkers. In such studies, changes of metabolic profiles over time under different conditions (e.g., control and intervention) are compared, and metabolites responding differently between the conditions are identified as putative biomarkers. To incorpora...

Tubers are important crops as well as staple foods in human nutrition. Among tubers, the potato in particular has been investigated for its health effects. However, except for its contribution to energy and effects related to resistant starch, the role of potatoes and other tubers in human health is still debated. In order to establish firm evidenc...

Scope To explore the effect of a healthy Nordic diet on the global transcriptome profile in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of subjects with the metabolic syndrome. Methods and Results Subjects with the metabolic syndrome underwent an 18/24 week randomized intervention study comparing an isocaloric healthy Nordic diet with an average ha...

Background: Patients with short bowel syndrome might have impaired postprandial endogenous glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) secretion, which is required for optimal intestinal adaptation. We aimed to assess the therapeutic potential of glepaglutide, a novel long-acting GLP-2 analogue, for reducing faecal output and increasing intestinal absorption...

Metabolomics is a relatively new and fast developing technology that covers a number of analytical profiling techniques and allows the measurement of hundreds of metabolites in almost any biological sample type. The gut-liver axis has been explored by metabolic profiling in a number of studies using various study designs, analytical techniques and...

Allium vegetables are widely consumed around the world and are known for their potential bioactive components improving human health. These effects have been extensively investigated; however, the results were inconsistent in human studies. Biomarkers of food intake (BFIs) could provide objective measurements of food intake in observational studies...

A significant body of evidence demonstrates that isoflavone metabolites are good markers of soy intake, while research is lacking on specific markers of other leguminous sources such as peas. In this context, the objective of our current study was to identify biomarkers of pea intake using an untargeted metabolomics approach. A randomized cross-ove...

Purpose Berries and mixed berry products exert acute effects on postprandial glycaemia and insulinemia, but very few berries have been studied, and primarily in normal weight subjects. Sea buckthorn and strawberry are compositionally widely different berries and may likely produce different responses. The effects of strawberry and sea buckthorn on...

Objective Circulating levels of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and their binding proteins (IGFBPs) have been associated with breast cancer (BC) risk. The evidence in relation to BC prognosis is limited. We aimed to evaluate the association between pre-diagnostic serum levels of IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFBP-2, IGFBP-3 and BC prognosis (i.e. recurrence,...

Abstract Fruit is a key component of a healthy diet. However, it is still not clear whether some classes of fruit may be more beneficial than others and whether all individuals whatever their age, gender, health status, genotype, or gut microbiota composition respond in the same way to fruit consumption. Such questions require further observational...

Scope Self‐reported dietary intake does not represent an objective unbiased assessment. We investigate the effect of the New Nordic Diet (NND) versus Average Danish Diet (ADD) on plasma metabolic profiles to identify biomarkers of compliance and metabolic effects. Methods and results In a 26‐week controlled dietary intervention study, 146 subjects...

Aim: We tested a large set (n = 181) of wet urine and dried urine samples spotted on regular cosmetic cotton swabs for comparative UHPLC-MSMS analysis of various metabolites across a wide polarity and structural range. Results/methodology: The agreement of measurements between conventional 24 h urines and dried urine spots made from them in situ w...

Non-alcoholic beverages are important sources of nutrients and bioactive compounds that may influence human health and increase or decrease the risk of chronic diseases. A wide variety of beverage constituents are absorbed in the gut, found in the systemic circulation and excreted in urine. They may be used as compliance markers in intervention stu...