Westlake Personalized Nutrition and Health Cohort for Drug Addicts

This is a prospective cohort study of drug addicts confined in Zhejiang rehabilitation centers. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the association between diet and health status among drug addicts. The second aim is to characterize the continuous blood glucose response to dietary intakes over 2 weeks. The third aim is to describe the dynamic changes of gut microbiota at three time points in drug addicts during compulsory detoxification and to evaluate the association between gut microbiota, diet and addiction severity.

Over recent decades, there is a growing trend of drug addiction in China that poses great public health challenges. Drug abuse can lead to many health related problems such as malnutrition and mental disorders along with reduced quality of life. Dietary intervention plays a pivotal role in disease prevention and drug rehabilitation for drug addicts, but the associations between dietary intake and health related outcomes among drug addicts remain unclear. In addition, the relationship between the human gut microbiota and its response to addictive drugs as a newly arisen subject is given wide attention in recent years. However, the underlying mechanism requires further investigation. The dynamic changes of gut microbiota among drug addicts during compulsory drug rehabilitation period are in vague. Under the same diet exposure, different drug addicts may have different blood glucose responses as well as gut microbiota profiles. Therefore, in order to examine the association between diet, gut microbiota and drug addiction, our study design will include three components: (1) the measurement of dietary intake using FFQ while the menu offered by drug rehabilitation center and food diary; (2) the measurements of blood glucose over 2 weeks using continuous glucose monitors; and (3) the measurements of gut microbiota at three time points using 16s rRNA sequencing techniques.