Dietary intervention and sampling. This volunteer was given a diet composed of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicine and prebiotics (WTP diet) for intervention. He was given 4 cans of gruel per day as staple food contract prepared in the form of cooked porridge (370 g wet weight per can) then canned by a food manufacturer (Shanghai Meilin Meida Food Co., Ltd.) for 23 weeks. Each can contained 100 g dry ingredients (59 g of carbohydrate, 15 g of protein, 5 g of fat, and 6 g of fiber) providing 336 kcal energy (70 % of carbohydrate, 17 % of protein, 13 % of fat). Fresh fecal samples were collected with 4 or 5 weeks intervals. Whole blood and serum samples were collected with 0, 9 and 23 week (0d, 9w, 23w). All samples were immediately frozen on collection and stored at -80 °C for subsequent analysis.