On February 19, 2019, Prof. Li Duo published a paper entitled “Effects of dietary fat on gut microbiota and faecal metabolites, and their relationship with cardiometabolic risk factors: a 6-month randomised controlled-feeding trial” in the journal of Gut. This study showed that higher-fat consumption by healthy young adults whose diet is in a state of nutrition transition appeared to be associated with unfavourable changes in gut microbiota, faecal metabolomic profiles and plasma proinflammatory factors, which might confer adverse consequences for long-term health outcomes. Once published, the paper was reported by more than a dozen foreign news outlets, including British Medical Journal (BMI), Daily Mail, U.S. News & World Report.

The paper’s first author, Wan Yi, a post doctor student of Prof. Li Duo (former PhD student of Zhejiang University), and  Wang Fenglei, a PhD student of Harvard University (former graduate student of Zhejiang University). Zhejiang University was the first unit of this paper. Yuan Jihong, director of No. 1 Department of Nutrition of Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Huang Tao, a professor from the School of Public Health of Peking University, and Zheng Jusheng, a professor from the Institude of Basic Medical Science of Westlake University, participated in part of the work. This study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program).