The DERIVE Project is working on the DEvelopment of Riboflavin biomarkers to relate dietary sources with status, gene-nutrient Interactions and Validated health Effects in adult cohorts.

Vitamin B2

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) plays a crucial role in human development and health across the lifespan. Recently, evidence has emerged which indicates that it may also have a modulating effect on blood pressure.

In most countries, there is little or no knowledge about the vitamin B2 nutrition status of the population due to the lack of convenient blood indicators and assessment tools. Dietary records are the sole source of information for most countries; however these do not reflect the biochemical status of the population which is a better indicator of health effects.

The Project

In this international and multidisciplinary project, we aim to develop accessible blood indicators for vitamin B2 status assessment and identify which most sensitively reflect dietary intakes and food sources of vitamin B2 in Irish and Canadian adults.

We will also demonstrate an important health effect of vitamin B2 by investigating its role in modulating blood pressure via a novel gene-nutrient interactive effect.

Impact

Suboptimal vitamin B2 status may be more widespread than is generally recognised across the developed world, because of the reliance on dietary data only in nutrition surveys, without blood indicator evidence.

This project will address this gap by developing accessible vitamin B2 blood indicators for use in population surveys globally, and by demonstrating important functional, gene-nutrient and health effects of optimal vitamin B2 status in Canadian, Irish and UK cohorts.

Publications

Our recent publication in Science Impact, Dec 2018 gives a great overview of the project.