May 2006

Message from Dean Kennedy

The Friedman School has many strengths. One of the most notable is the link between nutrition science and policy and our educational mission. I am therefore delighted that the school will be launching the first annual Friedman School Symposium this September 19-21.

The symposium will provide a forum for discussing cutting-edge science and the links to policies and programs. Appropriately, this first symposium will be dedicated to "Dietary Guidelines 2010: The Right Stuff." The Dietary Guidelines are enormously important because they form the basis of U.S. nutrition policy and increasingly have become the essential basis for addressing diet and healthy living. See you on the evening of September 19 for the opening reception. And fasten your seat belts. We have an exciting mystery speaker to open the symposium.

Here and there

Thank you to the many alumni, students, faculty and staff who attended events during the All-Alumni Reunion April 22-24. Special thanks to the Alumni Association's Reunion Committee and the Gershoff Symposium's Organizing Committee for their efforts in creating such dynamic programs. Photos from the events will be posted soon on the school website.

Patrick Webb gave a talk on "Emerging Issues for U.S. Government Attention" at a March 15 meeting of USAID and other senior government officials in Washington, D.C. The meeting was on "Reconsidering Food Aid." He also joined technical working group meetings in New York of the Ending Child Hunger Initiative, a joint activity of UNICEF, the World Food Program and others. He presented the latest findings on child growth and malnutrition and viable solutions to address the needs of 300 million children in need.

Carole A. Palmer lectured at the Pacific Dental Conference in Vancouver on March 9 and 10 on "Nutrition and the Contemporary Dental Team" and "Communicating Effective Nutrition Messages to Patients."

During spring break, 13 students in the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, along with Kathleen Merrigan and Willie Lockeretz, spent a week on a gastronomic and agricultural tour of Italy, visiting sites in and around Parma, Rome and Naples. Their purpose was to learn about production of regional specialty foods and to sample some of Italy's culinary delights. They toured factories that manufacture Parmigiano Reggiano and Buffalo Mozzarella cheese; visited farms that supply these factories with milk; and saw pigs destined to become Prosciutto di Parma hams. They also met with several staff members of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and savored superb dinners featuring the cuisines of each of the three regions. The success of the trip was to a very large degree the result of the meticulous planning and extremely attentive supervision provided by AFE student Corey O'Hara.

Knowing that the school was undergoing a serious review of the curriculum, a group of students, including Leah Horowitz, Wendy Johnecheck, Julie Thayer and Aimee Witteman, with guidance from Patrick Webb, developed a framework to guide thinking about ways to enhance both the breadth and depth of teaching at the school. The document, "A Framework for Food Systems Analysis: Opportunities for Engagement," involved a wide range of students from the more policy-related areas of the school and already has been helpful in stimulating dialogue among students and faculty.

On April 12, the Friedman School hosted a symposium, "Engaging Communities in Research: An Approach to Eliminating Health Disparities." Ph.D. candidate Latrice Goosby spearheaded the development of the symposium.

FOOD, a student initiative of the Friedman School, has had an active first year. On April 5, the group sponsored a career panel of Friedman graduates involved in work in the health, nutrition and food/agriculture sectors. The alumni speakers were Virginia Berman, organizing director of Equal Exchange; Stacey King, coordinator of the Healthy Living Cambridge program for the Cambridge Public Health Department; and Jessica Collins, director of the Somerville Health Agenda. On April 11, FOOD presented a symposium on "Sustainability in the Balance: Juggling Environmental Health, Economic Profitability and Social Equity in the Global Food System." The program included a keynote address by Fred Magdoff, professor of soils at the University of Vermont, who discussed the agro-ecological principles necessary for sustainable agriculture.

Staff at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts observed Black History Month during February with a number of exhibits commemorating the lives of Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, the Tuskegee Airman, Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X, among other important figures in black history. The displays also featured the Niagra Movement and the Negro Baseball League, along with African-American scientists, inventors, musicians and a display of African art. Staff gathered in the HNRCA lobby cafe on February 24 for a celebration of black history that included words of reflection by HNRCA Director Robert Russell, inspirational gospel singing by Lori Harper and a lunch featuring soul food. This is the third year of celebrating Black History Month at the HNRCA.

Research updates

Xiang-Dong Wang has received a five-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the chemopreventive effect of lycopene against carcinogenesis and insulin like-growth factor-1 signaling. Wang has been invited to speak on "Smoking, Alcohol and Vitamin A" at the AICR International Research Conference on "Food, Nutrition and Cancer" this July in Washington, D.C. He has also been invited to speak on "Carotenoid Oxidative Metabolites: Implications for Cancer Prevention" at the International Society for Free Radical Research biennial congress, which will be held in Davos, Switzerland, this August. At the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism 2006 World Congress, which will be held in Sydney, Australia, this September, Wang will give an invited talk on "Alcohol, Retinoids and Hepatocellular Cancer."

At the Experimental Biology conference...

Many members of the Tufts Nutrition community took part in the Experimental Biology 2006 meetings in San Francisco this April.

Alice Lichtenstein received the Robert H. Herman Memorial Award honoring a clinical investigator whose research has contributed to the advancement of clinical nutrition, particularly the biochemical and medical aspects of human nutrition. Irwin H. Rosenberg received the Conrad H. Elvehjem Award for Public Service in Nutrition given for distinguished service to the public through the science of nutrition.

Michael Crosier, a graduate research assistant in the HNRCA Vitamin K and Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory, received the 2006 McNeil Nutritionals Predoctoral Fellowship for the project "Genetic Polymorphisms Underlying the Role of Vitamin K in Vascular and Bone Health." Melissa Marko received the Outstanding Poster Award from the Immunology Section, as well as being named a Proctor & Gamble Graduate Student Competition Abstract Winner.

Heather Mernitz received the CARIG Outstanding Poster Award from the Carotenoid Research Interactive Group at the Carotenoid and Vitamin A Section, and graduate student Jennie Coates presented a paper describing qualitative and quantitative methods for developing and testing a questionnaire-based measure of household food insecurity in Bangladesh. Co-authors on the paper included Patrick Webb, Bea Rogers, Parke Wilde and Bob Houser.

Promotions and appointments

Now that Pat King has been promoted to the position of grant accountant, Melissa Saunders has been hired as the new accounting coordinator, working directly under Terre Daly. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Melissa has been in Boston just over two years.

Mark Krumm was recently hired as director of events and marketing for the Friedman School. His primary responsibility will be producing the Friedman School Symposium, which will be held September 19-21. He previously owned a company that provided meeting and conference management services to nonprofits and the automotive industry.

Awards and accolades

Graduate student Afsan Bhadelia has won a prestigious Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service. The award is given each year by Tufts University President Lawrence S. Bacow to recognize outstanding Tufts undergraduates and graduates for their community service and community leadership achievement.

Alexandra M. Kaun, who is currently enrolled in the master of arts in law and diplomacy program at the Fletcher School, is the recipient of the David Patrick O'Brien Grant.

Notable and quotable

A New York Times article on cloning pigs to improve their omega-3 content quoted Alice Lichtenstein on whether eating such altered foods will make a difference in health. And on that, "all bets are off," Lichtenstein said. Many questions remain, she said: How important are omega-3 fatty acids to human health? Would getting the fatty acids in meat be the same as getting them in fish? And is it really such a good idea to put omega-3s into foods like pork that contain saturated fats and cholesterol, which could increase risk of heart disease?

For an Associated Press article, Lichtenstein commented on a recent study that showed a rigid diet seemed as effective in lowering cholesterol as statin medications. She said the study was scientifically solid, but the diet is so strict she believes most North Americans would find it hard to follow in the real world. "It's a great diet, and they started with a very motivated group of individuals who were used to consuming a low-fat or vegetarian diet," she said. "But I think that for the general population, we have to be realistic—and it's unlikely that they're going to be able to adhere to something like this."

Kathleen Merrigan told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that while federal organic guidelines require that cattle have "access to pasture," the term is open to interpretation. "There hasn't been subsequent rule making on what 'access to pasture' means," she said.

Simin N. Meydani talked to Science News about a new study reporting that vitamin E supplements fail to promote overall health in older people at risk for heart problems and might even hike their chances of developing heart failure. She noted that many of the people in the new study were on medication for heart disease and suggested that "maybe vitamin E increases degradation of some of the drugs these people take." Her own tests have shown older people developed fewer respiratory infections while taking half the amount of the vitamin E they received in this study.

Miriam Nelson told The Boston Globe that weight training can restore muscle, rebuild bone and alleviate arthritis pain in older adults. "But soup cans don't work," says Nelson. "You've got to get the right equipment, work with a trainer, read a book or join a program."

An Associated Press article on targeting the food industry in the fight on obesity featured Jim Tillotson and ran in approximately 150 newspapers and websites, including many of the major papers in the country. "You don't have the collusion or the cover-up you had in smoking," Tillotson said. "We want to blame somebody, but the thing is, we're all a part of it."

The Detroit Free Press quoted Katherine Tucker on the prevalence of B-12 deficiency, which she found affects as much as 16 percent of the population. "It's a real problem," she says. "The awareness of it certainly needs to be raised." Thousands of people with the problem have called, written and e-mailed her about their B-12 deficiency in recent years, she says. "I've never seen anything like it."

In a letter to the editor published in The Financial Times, Patrick Webb argued that the loss of livestock due to avian flu may impact populations indirectly through malnutrition. "The loss of an egg may not sound like much, but it can be the tipping point for nutrient-deprived individuals exposed to viruses of many kinds," he wrote. "One egg can supply 20 percent of a five-year-old child's daily protein requirement."

Carmen Castaneda Sceppa was the lead researcher on a study that found that amino acid supplements and resistance training can effectively mitigate muscle loss resulting from being bedridden. "Use it or lose it," said Sceppa, who was quoted in a UPI article that ran in Science Daily and elsewhere. "We know that muscle mass and function deteriorate when muscles are not being used for extended periods of time, and we are interested in finding ways to counteract this process."

Coming right up

The Community Advisory Board of the HNRCA will host African-American community members for an outreach event. The Tufts Healthy Living Tour will be held at the HNRCA on Wednesday, May 10, from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Program highlights include a presentation on heart health for African Americans by Anne Charette of the HNRCA Metabolic Research Unit and blood pressure screening coordinated by Alice Martin from the Tufts-New England Medical Center Division of Nephrology. Jackson Brookins will talk about his experience as an HNRCA research study volunteer, and Laura Burns, manager of HNRCA Volunteer Services, will coordinate a tour of the Metabolic Research Unit. For further information about this event, contact Jean Bianchetto by email or at 617-556-3013.

The Tufts University Alumni Association and the Tufts Travel-Learn Program show you the world's most fascinating destinations. Trips are designed to satisfy all travel tastes: metropolitan or natural; highly structured to casual journeys; and rigorous to leisurely paced. There are also trips for families, those with a volunteer spirit and those for whom wellness, good health and staying in shape are priorities. Whether it is to South America, South Africa or Asia, Europe or to Maine, learning is embedded in all trips so that the traveler returns with a pampered mind, body and spirit. Journeys vary by price, duration, themes, locations and time of year and are open to alumni, staff and friends of the university. For information, visit its website or e-mail Usha Sellers.

Related Faculty

• Carmen Castaneda Sceppa
• Alice H. Lichtenstein
• William Lockeretz
• Kathleen A. Merrigan
• Miriam E. Nelson
• Carole A. Palmer
• Beatrice Lorge Rogers
• Irwin H. Rosenberg
• Robert M. Russell
• James E. Tillotson
• Katherine L. Tucker
• Xiang-Dong Wang
• Patrick Webb
• Parke E. Wilde