About Us

The current Nutrition Studies Program was built on a foundation of two decades of nutrition-related research, beginning with pioneering work in the 1960s by Dr. John Farquhar on obesity, diet, diabetes, and lipid metabolism. Along with Dr. Gerald Reaven, Dr. Farquhar discovered the basis of type 2 diabetes mellitus as insulin resistance resulting in part from obesity. In the past 30 years research on the inter-relationships of obesity, exercise, nutrition, and lipid metabolism has formed an important component of the SPRC research program and has resulted in major advances in our understanding of these issues.

The current nutrition program has taken on a new direction, focusing more directly on nutrition intervention studies. The current mission of this evolving program is to expand nutrition research beyond traditional nutrients (e.g. macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals) to focus more on dietary patterns (e.g., vegetarian diets, antioxidant-rich diets) and phytochemicals (e.g., garlic, phytoestrogens, ginkgo biloba), and beyond traditional outcome measures (e.g. cholesterol) to include more recently-established risk factors for disease (e.g., C-reactive protein, and inflammatory markers). Dietary strategies for weight loss are also a topic of research interest. Collaborators in the nutrition research program include Philip Tsao, Ph.D., cardiovascular medicine, John P. Cooke, M.D., vascular biology and cardiovascular medicine; David Feldman, M.D., endocrinology and cancer markers and mechanisms. Off-campus collaborators include Larry Lawson, Ph.D., Plant Bioactives Institute, Orem UT , and Eric Block, Ph.D., State University of New York at Albany .