Monitoring of emerging nutritional factors impacting health outcomes: KOMPAS prospective family cohort study

Abstract

IntroductionThe dietary habits of the population are undergone dramatic changes in recent years, with an increasing proportion of people adopting different variants of plant-based diets, limiting their consumption of food of animal origin. Moreover, the shift toward a plant-based diet is supported by scientific reports promoting them as a more sustainable dietary option, which is necessary to adopt on a global scale to mitigate the human influence on climate change. However, despite their growing popularity, many questions regarding their safety and long-term health effects remain unanswered. One of the biggest concerns is the health impact during childhood and adolescence, due to the higher risk of development of severe nutritional deficiencies accompanied by the lack of good quality evidence to guide clinical recommendations and management in those groups. To close the knowledge gap, we decided to establish a family cohort study with increased representation of vegetarian and vegan families with the aim to describe not only adult and child-specific outcomes associated with plant-based diet, but also shared family risks. The aim of the presented manuscript is to introduce the background of the establishment of the family cohort study and provide a description of its protocol.MethodsTo investigate the long-term effect of these newly emerging dietary habits, a cohort of families with at least one child under 7 years of age and with the same diet followed by all members was established. The goal for the first year of the study was to recruit at least 40 vegetarian, 40 vegan, and 60-80 omnivore families. At the time of enrollment, biological samples, as well as medical history, together with 3 day dietary records, were taken. The initial active follow-up is planned for at least 5 years.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the Institutional Review Board no. EK-VP/391012. The results of the study will serve as a basis for future research, as well as clinical guidelines and dietary recommendations in Czechia and neighboring regions.