Nitrate, Nitrite and Phosphate and the Public Health - The Good and the Bad of Natural Components Ubiquitously Found in Our in Food and Drinking Water

Nitrate, nitrite, and phosphate (NO3, NO2, P) are at all age stages ubiquitous in our everyday foods, including naturally occurring and as food additives, and in our drinking water. These compounds are essential in maintaining human well-being and health, but they have also been linked to detrimental health effects including contribution to cancer initiation and artery calcification, making it difficult to evaluate their overall health impact.

Therefore, the overarching aim of this project is to shed light on the potential dual effect of these compounds on a variety of chronic diseases (cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal cancers) at different life stages and to further elucidate on the molecular mechanisms suggested to underly the pathogenesis of these disease outcomes.

This will be achieved by using prospective, longitudinal population-based cohorts linked to comprehensive databases of NO3 and NO2 and using a biomarker of P while also integrating omics data on inflammatory and cardiometabolic biomarkers as well as the microbiome and urine bacterial metabolites. The project will be led by the PI and conducted by a team of PhD students and postdoc in close collaboration with relevant experts. It will be initiated early on and continued throughout a 4-year study period.

With this research, the investigators attempt to provide the strongest scientific evidence with etiologically more relevant exposure-disease associations and to shape future health risk assessments.