NCT04788836

How Altered Gut-Brain-Axis Influences Food Choices: Part 2 (BrainFood)

How Altered Gut-Brain-Axis Influences Food Choices. (BrainFood) Part 2: Digital Receipts

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 61 (actual)
• Sponsor: Lia Bally · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Obesity is currently one of the most substantial health burdens. Due to the production of marked and sustained weight loss, bariatric surgery is an increasingly used therapeutic modality to combat obesity and its comorbidities. Surgical rearrangement of the gastrointestinal tract remarkably alters metabolism and hormones acting on neurological and hypothalamic signalling, involved in food decision-making and eating behaviour. In this context, many patients who underwent bariatric surgery self-report changes in appetite, satiety and food preferences. Furthermore, new gut hormone-based (e.g. GLP-1 receptor agonist or GLP-1-RA) pharmacotherapies which mimic the effect of bariatric surgery show impressive efficacy on weight reduction by modulation of food behaviour. However, the mechanisms of such functional changes, and how they relate to food decision-making and food purchase behaviour remain unknown. In Part 2 of the BrainFood-project, the investigators propose a novel approach using digital receipts from loyalty card to unravel the effect of obesity treatments (surgical and non-surgical) on eating and food purchase behaviour in daily life.

Detailed description

The overall aim of this project is to elucidate the changes in food behaviour among obese adults undergoing obesity treatments. The main objective is to observe the effect of obesity treatments on food purchase behaviour using digital receipts from grocery shopping. The investigators hypothesize that bariatric surgery leads to changes in food purchase behaviour in obese adults. The further objective is to compare food purchase behaviour between obese adults against values of an existing reference population, and to assess whether these differences tend to be reduced after the start of the treatment among obese participants.

Conditions

• Food Preferences
• Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Questionnaire (Survey and Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ))	Each participant will be asked to fill a web-based questionnaire that captures sociodemographic, lifestyle, physical and mental health information (Survey) and dietary intake patterns (FFQ). This will be done pre-treatment (only for those included pre-treatment), 6 months after the start of obesity treatment, 1 year after the start of the treatment and then yearly until 5 year after the start of the treatment.
OTHER	Collection of digital receipts from grocery shopping	Participants will create their BitsaboutMe-account (GDPR-compliant data sharing platform from Bern, Switzerland) with the help of study team members. Data from digital receipts will be obtained from Migros Cumulus and Coop Supercard via their BitsaboutMe-account. The data collection allow retrospective digital receipts collection for up to 2 years and automatically continuous collection during study duration. GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-11-01
• Primary completion: 2026-12-01
• Completion: 2026-12-01
• First posted: 2021-03-09
• Last updated: 2025-06-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Switzerland