Sports Nutrition and Supplements

Nutritional Immunology

Nutritional Immunology investigates the role of dietary components and their interactions with other environmental factors and genes in age-associated changes of the immune and inflammatory responses. Methods are being developed to use the response as a biologically meaningful index in determining specific dietary requirements. The laboratory uses a translational approach to: 1) Study cellular and molecular mechanisms old and nutrition-induced changes in immune and inflammatory responses. 2) Determine the efficacy of food components including total calories, lipids, micronutrients like antioxidant, and zinc, still as flavonoids like those in tea and wolfberry, and pre and pro-bionics on improving the immune function and/or dampening the inflammatory responses using cell culture, animal models and clinical trials. 3) Determine the efficacy of food components like micronutrients and phytochemicals within the prevention of infectious, autoimmune and chronic diseases in animal models, clinical trials and observational studies in U.S. and fewer developed countries. 4) Determine the life-long impact of obesity and reducing caloric intake on reaction and resistance to infection. 5) Investigate the impact of nutrition during fatal life on long-life resistance to immune and inflammatory diseases.