Principal investigator
Research
The Human Nutrition Unit is a facility run as a collaboration between the Department
of Medicine and Clinical Biochemistry within the School of Biological Sciences.
The unit specialises in highly controlled, residential, nutrition intervention trials
from which the direct effect of diet on a range of disease states can be assessed.
Research focuses mainly on dietary macro and micronutrients and their effects on
later adult disease (CVD). Healthy volunteer subjects or at risk patients who take
part in the studies live at the unit for up to four weeks at a time, eating all of
their meals under supervision of the investigators. Whilst they are free to come
and go as they choose during the day, attending work or college in many cases, they
may eat only the foods provided for them by the metabolic kitchen. As such, it is
possible to make changes in individual nutrients within the diet and evaluate these
changes on biochemical risk factors known to be important in the initiation or progression
of NIDDM, CVD or other disease states.
Selected references
McDevitt R.M., Poppitt S.D., Murgatroyd P.R., Prentice A.M. (2000) Macronutrient
disposal during controlled overfeeding with glucose, fructose, sucrose or fat in
lean and obese women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72:369-77.
Stubbs R.J., Johnstone A.M., O'Reilly L.M., Poppitt S.D. (1998) Methodological issues
relating to the measurement of food, energy and nutrient intake in human laboratory-based
studies. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 57:357-72.
Poppitt S.D., Swann D.L. (1998) Dietary manipulation and energy compensation: does
the intermittent use of low-fat items in the diet reduce total energy intake, in
free-feeding lean men? International Journal of Obesity & Related Metabolic
Disorders 22:1024-31.
