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Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts announces 2nd annual symposium

Focus on behavior, interventions and the future of nutrition

The second annual Friedman School Symposium will be held October 29-31, 2007 in Boston, Massachusetts at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The symposium will continue to feature leading national and international experts presenting new research on: The Food Industry's Role in Nutrition, Exercise and the brain, immunity, innovative interventions, and the future of nutrition science and policy.

“In recent years, profound changes in lifestyle, food choices and physical activity have contributed to doubling, even tripling of the rates of overweight, obesity, diabetes and other serious illnesses related to behavior and nutrition. Our 2007 Symposium will focus on food choices, behavior and interventions within vulnerable age groups, and the roles of genetics and other emerging technology on a lifetime of positive health.” said Eileen T. Kennedy, Dean of the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

The keynote address, “Fetal Origins of Adult Chronic Disease” will be presented by David Barker, M.D., Ph.D., FRS. Dr. Barker is a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton, UK and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University, US. With colleagues at the Medical Research Council Unit, University of Southampton, he discovered the relationship between birth weight and the lifetime risk for coronary heart disease. In 1995, the British Medical Journal named this the “Barker Hypothesis.” This implies that normal variations in the transfer of food from mothers to babies have profound long-term implications for the health of the next generation. Later studies showed that low birth weight is associated with an increased risk of hypertension, stroke and Type-2 diabetes. This led to the 'Fetal Origins Hypothesis,' which proposes that coronary heart disease originates through responses to under nutrition during fetal life and infancy, which permanently change the body's structure, physiology and metabolism.

Symposium presentation topics and speakers will include:

• Corporate Roles and Challenges in Nutrition Behavior, Mark Cobain, PhD, Unilever

• PUFA and Brain Development; Susan Carlson, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center

• Gut-Brain Axis and Body Composition, Angelo Pietrobelli, MD, PhD, Verona (Italy) University Medical Center

• Nutrition and Cognitive Function, Monique Breteler, MD, PhD, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam

• Nutrition & Immune Function During Infancy and Childhood, W. Allan Walker, MD, Harvard School of Public Health

• Malnutrition is an Infectious Disease, Richard Guerrant, MD, University of Virginia Medical School

• Community Intervention: “Shape-Up Somerville”, Christina Economos, PhD, Tufts University

• Collaborative Meta-Analysis: Challenges and Opportunities to Uncover Diet-Health Relationships, Jane Armitage, MD, Oxford University

• Research Approaches to Nutrition in the Age of Evidence-Based Medicine: What Proof is Required", Robert Heaney, PhD, Creighton University

• Nutrigenomics: What Will we Learn and How Will we use it to Change Behavior and Create New Products" José Ordovas, Phd, Tufts University

• The Future of the Farm Bill and Dietary Guidance, Betsey Kuhn, PhD, Director of Food Economics, ERS, USDA

The full 2½ day program may be found on the School’s web site at http://nutrition.tufts.edu.

The Program Committee is co-chaired by Miriam Nelson, Ph. D., Associate Professor, Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition and José Ordovas, Ph.D., Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Senior Scientist and Director, Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging.

The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University is the only independent school of nutrition in the United States. The school’s centers, which focus on questions relating to famine, hunger, poverty, and communications, are renowned for the application of scientific research to national and international policy.

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