Unravelling the ´healthy´ in a healthy lifestyle: Dietary influences on subjective wellbeing and physical health

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Jana Strahler
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 391053377

In addition to regular physical activity, smoking cessation and alcohol moderation, diet is among the most important influences on health and wellbeing. Despite strong advocates for particular forms of diets, there have been no in-depth, longitudinal studies characterizing the biological and psychological consequences of a change in diet. Furthermore, research on mediating mechanisms is sparse. Thorough studies of dietary influences on different bodily systems, including the metabolic system, the neuroendocrine system and the immune system, will hopefully shed light on the contribution of diet to better health. This study aims at investigating the effect of changing one's omnivorous diet to an ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet, which best complies with current recommendations of a varied whole food diet. Two groups will be examined: n=64 omnivores participating in a 2-month ovo-lacto-vegetarian dietary intervention and n=64 omnivores continuing their mixed diet. We will examine participants' glucose tolerance, acute neuroendocrine and inflammatory stress responses, basal neuroendocrine functioning, and subjective wellbeing prior to and after the intervention. Furthermore, we will examine participants throughout 4 weeks after the intervention to assess returning to previous dietary behaviour and possible rebound effects. We will also employ an ecologically valid (micro-) longitudinal approach to derive information on important confounders of dietary effects on health, such as other health-relevant behaviours or intervention-induced changes in mood and distress. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms will offer knowledge on why a vegetarian diet is assumed to be good for health, therefore also providing us with potential new treatment targets that will help in developing new approaches to improve health and prevent disease via diet.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Urs Nater; Professor Dr. Harald Renz; Professor Dr. Rudolf Maria Stark