Human Nutrition & Food Science
The long-term goal of the Human Nutrition Research Program is to examine how physical exercise and dietary factors such as fat, total Calories, fiber, and antioxidants contribute to development and prevention of cardiovascular disease and obesity. Obesity is one of the most serious health problems in the United States affecting about 33% of adult Americans 20-74 years old. In previous studies, effects of dietary factors on energy metabolism, blood pressure, lipid metabolism, and catecholamine metabolism were examined using several animal models.
The aim of the current human nutrition research project is to understand the causes, prevention, and treatment of obesity, especially in underserved minority populations. Studies using both human subjects and animal models of obesity have examined relationships among diet, energy balance, exercise, and cardiovascular disease risk factors such as blood pressure, plasma leptin and C-reactive peptide (CRP) levels, insulin resistance and blood lipid profile. The human nutrition research program recently obtained an instrument to accurately measure human body composition. The Bod Pod Professional Body Composition Tracking System is now available to measure total body fat and lean tissue in human subjects. This is proving to be a very useful tool to measure changes in total body fat in subjects enrolled in the human nutrition research programs at Lincoln University.
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