Report of a member-led meeting: how stable isotope techniques can enhance human nutrition research

Abstract

A Nutrition Society member-led meeting was held on 9 January 2020 at The University of Surrey, UK. Sixty people registered for the event, and all were invited to participate, either through chairing a session, presenting a ‘3 min lightning talk’ or by presenting a poster. The meeting consisted of an introduction to the topic by Dr Barbara Fielding, with presentations from eight invited speakers. There were also eight lightning talks and a poster session. The meeting aimed to highlight recent research that has used stable isotope tracer techniques to understand human metabolism. Such studies have irrefutably shaped our current understanding of metabolism and yet remain a mystery to many. The meeting aimed to de-mystify their use in nutrition research.

Resistant Starch Production and Glucose Release from Pre‐Prepared Chilled Food: The SPUD Project

“…Another contributor to the extent of postprandial glycaemia is the degree to which hepatic glucose production is suppressed in response to the ingestion of glucose-containing carbohydrate. This can only be measured using stable isotope techniques, which can measure the flux of glucose from the liver (endogenous glucose production) into the peripheral circulation as well as glucose arriving from the test meal (Fielding et al 2020). In order to truly represent the metabolic fate of glucose molecules chemically linked in starch, the glucose must be intrinsically labelled with stable isotope atoms.…”