Mediterranean Diet Impact on Clonal Hematopoiesis: A population-Based Study (MEDICH)

The Mediterranean Diet (MD) is widely recognized for its protective effects against major global health burdens such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, and diabetes. Clonal Hematopoiesis (CH), particularly of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP), is a pre-clinical condition marked by somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), often leading to clonal expansion and increased risk of hematologic malignancies, CVD, type II diabetes, and mortality. Despite MD’s documented health benefits, population-level data on its association with CH/CHIP in Mediterranean cohorts remains scarce.

The MEDICH project aims to investigate how adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and related lifestyle factors influence the development and progression of Clonal Hematopoiesis (CH/CHIP).

This project is designed as a population-based, multi-regional European study focusing on adults aged 40–80 years, integrating advanced genomics (NGS/WES and targeted panels), inflammatory and immunological profiling, metabolomics, microbiome analysis, and detailed nutritional and lifestyle data. By combining molecular data with environmental exposures, the project will explore gene–diet interactions, clonal dynamics, and their links to age-related disease risk. Statistical and machine-learning approaches will be used for risk stratification and precision prevention modelling.

The University of Crete brings strong expertise in hematology, clonal hematopoiesis, cardiovascular prevention, immunology, and multi-omics data integration, supported by established laboratory infrastructure and experience in European collaborative research.

To successfully implement the proposed, additional capacities would be highly beneficial. These include:

• Coordinators or participants of large population-based cohorts or biobanks

• Groups with expertise in nutritional epidemiology, public health, genomics, bioinformatics, or longitudinal health data

• Institutions able to contribute complementary regional cohorts or comparative non-Mediterranean data