FEASIBILITY OF A REMOTELY EXECUTED CLINICAL STUDY TO ASSESS POSTPRANDIAL METABOLISM USING DRY BLOOD SPOTS AS A SAMPLING STRATEGY

The physiological changes that take place after the ingestion of a meal are largely controlled by insulin and can reflect changes in the response of the organism to this hormone. The analysis of postprandial responses can be more informative of metabolic fitness than that of parameters measured after a 12-hour fasting, which is the current clinical practice. Different studies have reported metabolic differences among groups of subjects in the postprandial state, while failing at detecting differences in the fasted state. Dry blood spots (DBS) are a non-invasive and inexpensive tool for sampling and storing small volumes of biological fluids, useful in biomarker discovery studies or the analysis of responses to interventions. Endogenous compounds and metabolites from dietary components, drugs or pollutants can be detected in DBS samples. In recent decades, several applications of metabolomics have been developed and adapted for the analysis of these samples.