Know Your Neurotransmitters: Acetylcholine
June 1, 2017 • It’s high time we covered acetylcholine — the most plentiful neurotransmitter in the body. And our Know Your Neurotransmitters series continues with the best guest possible to talk to us about acetylcholine: Dr. Steven Zeisel, MD, PhD. Dr. Zeisel, UNC Nutrition Research Institute Director, was involved in the first study of the effects of choline — the nutrient precursor to acetylcholine — on humans […]
May 2017
Shedding Light on Genetic Associations with Cancer Many of the genes we study at the NRI are involved in nutrient metabolism. One of the ways we can learn about what a gene does is to delete it in an animal model and then see how the gene-deleted animals differ from...Whole Grains Prevent Chronic Lifestyle Disease in More Ways Than One
May 1, 2017 • Whole grains have more health benefits to offer other than those from consuming fiber. These plant foods are also unique and rich sources of phytochemicals, bioactive compounds exclusively produced by plants that lower the risk of chronic disease. Whole grains contain dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals, and phytochemicals, but […]
Renowned Scientist Joins Nutrition Research Institute
November 30, 2016 • Susan Sumner, PhD joins the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) on December 1, 2016, as a Professor of metabolomicsNutrition. Dr. Sumner is working to make personalized medicine a reality through metabolomics. Metabolomics involves measuring thousands of metabolites in cells, tissues, and biological fluids.
November 2016
Do Eggs Cause Heart Disease? Several recent studies linked increased levels of a metabolic product of dietary choline with higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (Wang et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2013) through a mechanism that involved gut microbiota-produced...
Do Eggs Cause Heart Disease?
October 25, 2016 • Several recent studies linked increased levels of a metabolic product of dietary choline with higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (Wang et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2013) through a mechanism that involved gut microbiota-produced trimethylamine oxide (TMAO). These studies have sparked considerable scientific (and non-scientific) discussion, with health advice from some groups suggesting avoidance of meat and eggs (significant sources of choline) and from others suggesting that the findings have been vastly overinterpreted.