INTEGRACTIV

Background

Physical activity (PA) provides health benefits across the lifespan and improves many established cardiovascular risk factors that have a significant impact on overall mortality. Childhood and adolescence are critical periods for life-time health; processes underlying cardiovascular diseases and obesity generally originate in early ages. However, it is not clear how PA links to different parameters of health. There is an important need to cover this critical gap and, more specifically, to have biomarkers allowing to relate the degree of PA with effects on health. This project aims to identify such biomarkers. More specifically it aims to identify integrated markers reflecting both physical activity level and health in children and in adolescents.

Project description

The INTEGRActiv project aims to identify integrated markers of physical activity level and health in children and adolescents. These h represent an important target population to address personalized interventions to improve future, life long, metabolic health. Identification of new biomarkers will be achieved by combining measures of PA and cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness with anthropometric measures, cardiovascular risk factors and endocrine markers, cytokines, circulating miRNA, and gene expression profile in blood cells and metabolomics profile in plasma and blood cells.
Following identification in a core cohort and data integration analysis, candidate biomarkers will be further assessed in core cohort subjects after educational intervention and in existing samples from other independent studies. INTEGRActiv encompasses relevant progress beyond the state-of-the-art for (a) the definition of potential biomarkers for PA level in childhood and adolescence; (b) the provision of relevant mechanistic information for the link between PA and metabolic health in youth subjects; (c) the identification of factors such as age, gender, body weight, sleep behaviour and puberal status that quantitatively affect biomarker responses; (d) the use and development of new tools in biomarker research, including integrative analysis; (e) further assessment and first-step validation of promising candidate biomarkers in an intervention study and other independent studies.

It is expected that new identified robust biomarkers reflecting physical activity level and its relation with health will guide nutritional/life-style and clinical advice and public policies related to endorse biomarker- based personalised physical activity, with a better adherence and response, to promote health and prevent disease risk factors starting in early stages of life.
Our role in the project is focused on circulating metabolic biomarkers and peripheral blood mononuclear cell transcriptome in a reference population of physical high fit and low fit adults.