MED4Youth - Mediterranean enriched diet for tackling youth obesity

The primary goal of MED4Youth is to achieve a decrease of the BMI z-score parameter46 of 0.20 in the MD group compared with the low-fat group, which is considered clinically important in children and adolescents, is comparable to a weight loss of approximately 5% and it is associated with improvements in cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors.47 For every 1-unit increase in BMI z-score the hazard ratio for boys and girls aged 13 years of a fatal coronary heart disease event in adulthood was 1.24 and 1.23, respectively. In second place MED4Youth also targets to achieve a decline of 2 cm in WC in the MD group compared with low-fat group. WC is a surrogate marker of abdominal obesity and is associated with higher CVD risk in youth. A 5-point increase in KidMed was associated with a mean decline of 1.54 cm in sex-, age- and heightadjusted WC in young Spaniards aged 10-24 years.

The main objective of MED4Youth is to strengthen the link between the MD and health benefits against youth obesity and associated CVD risk factors through the identification of evident positive effects exerted by an energy-restricted MD including healthy products from the Mediterranean basin (mixed nuts, pomegranate and hummus) and sourdough bread. The project also aims to elucidate whether the health effects of MD are associated with changes in the gut microbiota and gut-derived metabolites in order to shed light on the interplay between MD, gut microbiome, metabolome and youth obesity which, at present, remains poorly elucidated.