Fast and accurate self-monitoring tests for better adherence to exercise and diet

Lifestyle diseases arise through prolonged exposure to health risks caused by mainly three avoidable behaviours: smoking, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity. Resulting illnesses, such as stroke, diabetes, heart attack, or lung cancer result in a loss of quality of life for the individual, but also in a significant portion of all deaths and huge healthcare and economic costs.

Despite the underlying behaviours being entirely avoidable, many individuals find changing them hard or even impossible. One of the reasons for this difficulty lies in the long-term nature (months to years) of health improvements to manifest themselves, in other words, what is missing is a timely (hours to days) positive and motivating feedback loop to see the effects of behavioural change efforts.

Changing unhealthy eating habits, for example, will not normally result in significant weight loss for several months (ignoring potentially unhealthy crash diets). Similarly, starting a regime of exercises will not yield significant improvements to either physique, strength, or aerobic fitness for a long time (depending on the exercises chosen and the intensity and duration of them).

This project will use published knowledge about molecules in blood and saliva, which can reflect the state of the body with respect to nutrition and exercise. One such biomarker was prominently used in Dr Mosley's Horizon documentary on fasting diets ([https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-20122013-3-eat-fast-and-live-longer][0])

The project will use already identified detection reagents that only need adaptation to function in self-administered Lateral Flow Test (LFT) with which we all had to become familiar during the pandemic. The anticipated results are easy to use and interpret LFTs which can measure the effect on the body in hours to a few days after starting a diet or an exercise regime. Results can be used to celebrate successful lifestyle change long before changes to weight or fitness...