Nutrition, Health and Human Performance
The work of Exeter Food members in this area includes research on obesity and diet-related disease as well as interventions to promote healthy eating, support gut health, and improve health and physical performance. A wide range of populations are beneficiaries of this research, from children to active adults and the elderly, and from athletes to cancer patients and people experiencing dementia.
Psychologist Natalia Lawrence works on the development and testing of digital behaviour change interventions to alter diets at the level of the individual, with a focus on impulse control in relation to unhealthy or unsustainable foods such as high-sugar foods or meat. Camilla Forbes (McHugh) works on system approaches to food provision and health promotion in schools around healthy choices.
Psychologist Andrew Higginson develops evolutionary models of obesity based on theoretical models from behavioural ecology. Psychologist Edward Watkins uses behavioural activation approaches to change diet and coping in overweight adults to test if this could prevent depression, as well as studying the relationship between worry, sleep, activity and diet in the intersection between physical and mental health. Biomedical Neuroscientist Kate Ellacott –leads a team researching how different cell types in the brain (neurons, microglia, astrocytes and endothelial cells) coordinate and interact to regulate food intake and body weight, how the normal function of the brain changes in response to alterations in body weight including obesity (excess body weight) and anorexia/cachexia (insufficient body weight), and how these changes in the brain contribute to the development of commonly associated diseases like diabetes. Susannah Tooze, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Practice Lead for the Academy of Nursing, has expertise in healthy eating and obesity, and is an active member of the International Learning Collaborative, an international network bringing people together to improve the delivery of fundamental care in health systems. Claire Hulme—who is Professor of Health Economics and Director of the Institute of Health—works on obesity, health inequalities, economic evaluation, and behavioural change.
Human geneticist Tim Frayling has been working as a molecular geneticist for more than twenty years, the majority of that time with common human traits and diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, obesity and related conditions. Rob Andrews, who is Associate Professor of Diabetes, researches diet, protein, carbohydrates, and insulin action, and is working on the analysis of data from a diet and exercise study in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics to look at predictors of progression of the disease. Katarina Kos is a clinical academic who studies the crosstalk of human fat tissue (and its distribution) with other organs in the pathogenesis of obesity complications including Type 2 diabetes—this typically in well characterised participants by using molecular techniques in the study of fat tissue biopsies/ culture and endocrine products in blood samples. She is also interested in the effect of exercise and psychology of eating disorders. Francis Stephens studies skeletal muscle metabolism, insulin sensitivity, whole body glucose, amino acid, fatty acid kinetics, and carnitine sport supplements. Sarah Jackman, who lectures in physiology and nutrition, studies bioactives, polyphenols, insulin, diabetes, and protein synthesis, and is currently looking at purple corn and the effect that it has on cycling time trial performance.
Joanna Bowtell investigates the effects of bioactives and exercise on musculoskeletal, cognitive, vascular and metabolic ageing, and exercise performance using a combination of whole-body, cellular and molecular techniques. Nutritional physiologist Benjamin Wall conducts research on nutrition and exercise interactions determining skeletal muscle adaptation. Registered Dietitian Raquel Revuelta Iniesta’s research explores the interface between nutrition and chronic conditions, such as cancer, Cystic Fibrosis and Autism Spectrum Disorders, in children, teenagers and young adults; the role of nutrition in prevention, diagnosis and treatment when living with and beyond chronic conditions to improve care and patient’s outcome; and different aspects of vitamin D, which range from population-based studies looking at people’s knowledge and perceptions and how this influences vitamin D status, to intervention studies that investigate the effects of vitamin D on health outcomes.
Plant biochemist Nick Smirnoff works on metabolism, antioxidants and nutraceutical compounds in plants, and the effect of environmental factors on plant composition, as well as analytical techniques for measuring plant derived compounds (e.g. mass spectrometry). Psychologist Victoria Tischler studies how plant-based diets can improve nutrition and hydration for older inpatients, including those with dementia.
Applied physiologist Andrew Jones studies the influence of dietary nitrate on the oral and gut microbiome, on skeletal muscle metabolism, on cardiovascular and metabolic health in older age, and on muscle contractile function and exercise performance. Human physiologist Anni Vanhatalo works with Jones on the influence of dietary nitrate, with a focus on its impact on nitric oxide bioavailability and cardiovascular health across lifespan and its role as the metabolic interface between dietary fibre and nitrate intake and vascular health, as a modulator of cognitive decline in ageing, and on skeletal muscle metabolism and functional capacity in ageing. Nutritionist Luciana Torquati also works with Vanhatalo the effect on fermentable fibre (inulin) and nitrates on the gut microbiome and vascular function. She also studys the effect of exercise alone, or in combination with diet, on the human gut microbiome and mycobiome, and microbiome-related metabolites and immune markers.
Joasia Luzak, Professor of Law, researches nutritional labelling and food safety. Public Health Nutritionist Kerry Ann Brown works on international food labelling schemes.
The work of public health physician and epidemiologist Nigel Unwin and medical anthropologist Cornelia Guell addresses upstream determinants of diet related chronic non-communicable diseases, and in particular the role that (re) localisation of sustainable and resilient food production can play in improving local population well-being, especially nutrition and health.
