Spring Break
DINING DECISIONS
Food Choices can lead to diseases
Shannon Hurley
Issue date: 10/9/07 Section: News
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"It is clear that there are lifestyle choices that can enhance or reduce risk for chronic diseases," said Dr. Henry Thompson, director of the CPL. "Medicine is moving toward understanding personalized risk."
The first of its kind in the United States that works to better the health benefits derived from fruits, vegetables, and grains in the diet, the CPL's research is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute. Housed in a small corner of the Plant Sciences basement and consisting of no more than 30 researchers, the quiet yet productive staff in the office and laboratory of the CPL inquire, examine and analyze the content of our diets daily in what Thomson described as a "transdisicplinary research effort" to determine which foods will ultimately provide the best human health benefits.
"We focus on what you can do to prevent the disease from occurring," said Erica Daniell, a Food Science and Nutrition graduate student researching at the CPL.
Daniell explains the lab's "iceberg analogy," referring to the signs outside the lab doors. When envisioning a floating iceberg, the small but exposed tip is cancer while the larger submerged base is prevention. The best opportunity for action exists within this base. Through its various research projects, the CPL strives to understand what can be done to prevent the disease from ever exposing its dangerous tip.
"Our effort is to discover how to prevent the iceberg from ever becoming a reality," Thompson said. "While we'll never be heroes, the best thing you can do for a person is have them never experience cancer."
Conducting extensive clinical research and cooperating across fields with physicians, nutritionists and plant breeders among others, the CPL is currently exploring the impact of a botanically diverse diet on biomarkers of disease risk as well as the importance of crop diversity in the human diet.
Understanding the preventative capacities of the foods we eat should be beneficial for CSU students who do not always contemplate the consequences of everyday lifestyle choices. Being proactive in areas such as alcohol and tobacco consumption, exercise and diet is something that Thompson believes should be thought about today and not tomorrow.
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