Obesity and associated comorbidities are among the main causes of death worldwide. Prevention of overweight and obesity, as well as innovative lifestyle interventions directed towards improving metabolic homeostasis, are first-line strategies for treatment and are crucial to reducing the obesity burden.

The NutriClock project proposes a multidimensional approach to better understand obesity phenotypes, based on chronobiology features assessment. We aim to screen individual circadian variations and clock gene expression and correlate them with the heterogeneous clinical phenotypes of obesity.

To accomplish its objectives, the research project comprises a series of multidisciplinary tasks centred on an observational clinical study conducted in a group of patients with obesity and a control group with healthy participants.

Keywords: Chrononutrition, Circadian rhythms, Obesity 

Principal Investigator: Maria Guarino

Research Team:

• ciTechCare: Marlene Lages
• Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto (FCNAUP): Renata Barros
• Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra (IPC): Sara Carmo-Silva

Duration: 60 months (2019 – 2024)

Institutional Partners and Others

• Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto (FCNAUP)
• Unidade Local de Saúde da Região de Leiria, E.P.E.
• Coimbra Health School, Polytechnic University of Coimbra.

Funding:  Emilio Peres Award 2020 – Portuguese Society of Diabetology