Sukalmena InAge: Nutritional-culinary Programme to Promote Adherence to a Healthy Dietary Pattern.
Condition: Obesity; Healthy Aging; Cognitive Impairment
MeSH terms: Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Currently, one of the main health challenges of public health is to improve the quality of
      life of people with chronic non-communicable diseases, through new strategies that promote
      healthy eating habits and lifestyles.

      Within the new strategies that aim to promote and improve the eating habits of the
      population, "Sukalmena-InAge" is proposed as a tool for transforming health, where culinary
      skills and nutritional knowledge converge as a new paradigm to promote health. The merging of
      culinary knowledge and nutritional education has been coined under the term Culinary
      Medicine.

      The present project is presented as an innovative strategy to improve dietary habits of
      overweight/obese people. To this end, volunteers will participate in an intervention that
      will be based on cooking workshops and nutritional education. In this sense, participants
      will receive different cooking and nutritional education sessions in order to be able to give
      them resources to cook in an easy, enjoyable and healthy way.

      The study will evaluate the effect that this nutritional-culinary intervention programme
      might exert on health and will compare these results with the effects obtained providing a
      more traditional nutritional education.

      The potential effects will be evaluated through the measurement of specific biochemical
      parameters related to the most prevalent chronic diseases ( insulin, glucose, total
      cholesterol, triglycerides, among others). In addition, the measurement of advanced glycation
      end products (AGEs) in tissue will be carried out. High consumption of AGEs, could induce
      negative effects on health and has been correlated with the type of food consumed, but also
      with the culinary techniques used for their preparation.
    

Detailed description: 
      Lifestyle interventions are nowadays focused on promoting health and preventing chronic
      diseases. However, when it comes to changing lifestyle habits, and more specifically, dietary
      habits, the acquisition and maintenance of these modifications over time is often complex due
      to many factors that may affect.

      There is a consensus among health professionals that, based on the available scientific
      evidence, a diet based on a high consumption of fruit and vegetables is inversely associated
      with the risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases and, overall, with lower
      mortality rates. These protective effects might be in part due to certain nutrients present
      in the mentioned foods, namely biologically active compounds or bioactive compounds, such as
      mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, fibre, phytochemicals, antioxidant vitamins, minerals,
      ω-3 fatty acids and plant proteins. These compounds exert antiinflammatory and antioxidant
      effects, thus, as part of a healthy dietary pattern, they may have the capacity to preserve
      healthy ageing, for instance, in relation to cognitive status.

      Nevertheless, the role of culinary methods from a healthy dietary perspective should not be
      forgotten. During culinary processes the nutrient content can be modified, contributing not
      only to the loss or enhancement of beneficial nutrients such as biologically active
      components (CBAs), but also to the formation of compounds that might be harmful or toxic for
      the human organism, for example, Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs).

      Taking this into consideration, this study seeks to develop a pilot study to analyse the
      feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a nutritional-culinary programme aiming to promote
      long-term healthy ageing in overweight or obese adults. Volunteers participating in the
      intervention will receive nutritional recommendations based on a healthy dietary pattern such
      as Mediterranean Diet, together with a culinary training, seeking to empower them in cooking
      techniques and culinary capacities.

      In conclusion, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a nutritional-culinary
      intervention to produce beneficial effects on health parameters of overweight/obese patients
      and to compare the results obtained with the health effects obtained through a nutritional
      intervention without a culinary training.
    

Intervention name(s): Mediterranean diet-based nutritional education intervention; Mediterranean diet-based culinary intervention
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The patients in the nutritional intervention group will receive dietary advice on how to follow a Mediterranean diet. The dietary recommendations will be given at the beginning of the study by nutritionists using comprehensive written material.; The culinary intervention will be developed integrating eight culinary and nutritional workshops that will be given every week, twice per week, during one-month intervention. The duration of each culinary and nutritional workshop will be 1 hour, thus, the program will provide a total of hours of nutritional education and a total of 8 hours of nutritional and cooking training. The courses will take place in a well-equipped kitchen from the Basque Culinary Center and participants will be connected online in order to be able to cook and practice at the same time. All cooking classes will begin with a theoretical introductory part that aim to explain the main take-home messages from the workshop. Subsequently, every class will be characterized by a hands-on part that will include the demonstration and practical preparation of different elaborations based on the use specific cooking techniques and healthy ingredients.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: This study uses a randomized controlled trial design with one-month intervention program and six months of follow-up in order to test the effects of a culinary intervention program to improve cooking and healthy eating behaviour in overweight and obese patients.
The culinary intervention program will be given over a one-month period, two days a week for four weeks. Participants in the control group (CG) will receive dietary training based on Mediterranean diet at the baseline visit and a leaflet explaining this dietary pattern. The participants assigned to the culinary intervention program will receive the same nutritional recommendations and eight online nutritional and cooking classes.
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Mediterranean diet; Culinary intervention; Cooking classes; Nutritional education; Confidence