Environment and Nutrition
Beginning at conception, environmental factors in health can accumulate over a lifetime and be from sources as broad as geographic location and economic status to specific external sources including physical activity, occupation, risky behaviors and diet. But some of these factors, especially in terms of diet are highly modifiable.
Important research is now being conducted on this concept of the “exposome,” as an environmental complement to the human genome. NRI researchers are learning how diet and other environmental exposures interact with disease and affect responses to treatment.
Publications
Environment and Nutrition Publications
2020
Precision (Personalized) Nutrition: Understanding Metabolic Heterogeneity. Zeisel S
Perspective: Dietary Biomarkers of Intake and Exposure-Exploration with Omics Approaches. Zeisel S
2019
Obesity and Cancer Metabolism: A Perspective on Interacting Tumor-Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors. Hursting S
When less may be more: calorie restriction and response to cancer therapy. Hursting S
Energy balance and obesity: what are the main drivers? Hursting S
Metabolic Reprogramming by Folate Restriction Leads to a Less Aggressive Cancer Phenotype. Krupenko S
Early-Life Predictors of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. May P
Alcohol’s Dysregulation of Maternal-Fetal IL-6 and p-STAT3 Is a Function of Maternal Iron Status. Smith S
2018
Energy balance and gastrointestinal cancer: risk, interventions, outcomes and mechanisms. Hursting S
Research Strategies for Nutritional and Physical Activity Epidemiology and Cancer Prevention. Hursting S
2017
Metabolic Reprogramming by Folate Restriction Leads to a Less Aggressive Cancer Phenotype. Krupenko S
Contribution of Dietary Supplements to Nutritional Adequacy in Various Adult Age Groups. Zeisel S
2016
CerS6 Is a Novel Transcriptional Target of p53 Protein Activated by Non-genotoxic Stress. Krupenko N
Abnormal Eating Behaviors Are Common in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Smith S
Impact of a western diet on the ovarian and serum metabolome. Sumner S
Metabolomics enables precision medicine: “A White Paper, Community Perspective”. Sumner S
Related News
Choline Biomarker Study Call for Participants
August 28, 2017 – The Zeisel Lab at the NRI is recruiting participants for a clinical study on the essential nutrient choline. The lab needs healthy females and males between the ages of 17 and 70 to take part in a six-week study. Participants will be asked to provide blood samples and will eat meals provided by the NRI during the course of the study. “Healthy” means normal body weight, and no smoking, drug abuse, unusual diets, allergy to soy, or chronic diseases. All qualifying participants will be paid when they complete the study.
You Can Help Advance Our Science
July 27, 2017 – The Zeisel Lab at the NRI is recruiting participants for a clinical study on the essential nutrient choline. The lab needs healthy females and males between the ages of 17 and 70 to take part in a six-week study. Participants will be asked to provide blood samples and will eat meals provided by the NRI during the course of the study. “Healthy” means normal body weight, and no smoking, drug abuse, unusual diets, allergy to soy, or chronic diseases. All qualifying participants will be paid when they complete the study.
Female Tea Drinkers See Epigenetic Changes in Cancer and Hormone Genes
June 27, 2017 • That morning or midday beverage may have a greater effect on our genes than previously thought, especially if you happen to be female and consume tea on a regular basis. New evidence from a group of investigators at Uppsala University shows that tea consumption in women leads to epigenetic changes in genes that are known to interact with cancer and estrogen metabolism. Findings from the new study were published recently in Human Molecular Genetics in an article entitled “Tea and Coffee Consumption in Relation to DNA Methylation in Four European Cohorts.”
NRI Grooms Next Gen Scientists
June 27, 2017 • Grant Canipe didn’t always know that he wanted to be a scientist. His revelation came one day at Northwest Cabarrus High School in Concord, NC, when a Duke University student came to Canipe’s AP biology class to discuss his research and plans for graduate school. Canipe found himself inspired by that student’s experience so much that he himself is now completing his doctorate at UNC Chapel Hill in developmental psychology and nutrition. He studies under the direction of Carol L. Cheatham, Ph.D. in the Cheatham Nutrition & Cognition Laboratory at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI), located on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. […]
July 2017
NRI Grooms Next Gen Scientists When Grant Canipe graduated from Northwest Cabarrus in 2009, he joked that he was leaving Concord and never coming back. But in an interesting twist, he did come back and is now working as a scientist at the UNC Nutrition Research...
University of North Carolina Introduces New Research Core Merging Nutrition And Genetics
June 1, 2017 • The University of North Carolina Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (NORC) introduces the new Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics (NGx) Core. Located in the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) on the NC Research Campus in Kannapolis, NGx has been created to assist investigators in conducting studies that lead to a better understanding of the impacts lifestyle and genetics have […]