The Paradox of Overnutrition in Aging and Cognition

Speakers

Organizers

Deborah Gustafson, PhD

SUNY Downstate Medical Center; University of Gothenburg

Deborah Gustafson is a Professor at the State University of New York-Downstate Medical Center, Departments of Neurology and Medicine, Section for NeuroEpidemiology, as well as the University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska Academy, Neuropsychiatric Epidemiology Research Unit, in Sweden. She is the Swedish Research Council Senior Researcher in Psychiatric Epidemiology. Dr. Gustafson was the first to report on a relationship between overweight and risk of Alzheimer's disease based on population-based studies in Sweden. She continues to explore potential mechanisms of adipose tissue, as well as vascular and metabolic factors, in relationship to mental disorders and brain structure. She has a global research focus and collaborates with research teams in Europe, South America and Asia. In New York City, she is Co-PI of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), a multi-center study across the US, in which she is exploring the role of anthropometric indices, adipose tissue hormones, and genetic susceptibility in relation to cognition in a diverse sample of women with HIV. Deborah is the recipient of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH, USA), the European Union, and the Swedish Research Council. Dr. Gustafson has over 100 peer-reviewed or invited publications. She is an invited speaker at international meetings on the topics of adiposity, vascular factors, and prevention of dementia and other mental disorders in the elderly. Deborah received her educational training from the University of Minnesota and held an NIH postdoctoral fellowship.

John G. Kral MD, PhD

SUNY Downstate Medical Center

With an MA in Behavioral Neuroscience, Dr. Kral attended medical school at the University of Göteborg, Sweden, where he completed residencies in Surgery and Medicine and PhD studies on adipose tissue and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. He initiated the program for obesity surgery there and, in 1981, the Division of Surgical Metabolism at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University, as a member of the first NIH Obesity Research Center. Apart from studies of body composition, adipose tissue receptors and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism his career-long interests have included ingestive behavior and determinants of the chronic inflammatory insulin resistant over-nutrition syndrome. In 1983 he co-founded the American Society for Bariatric Surgery and co-organized the 1991 NIH Consensus Development Conference: Gastrointestinal Surgery for Severe Obesity. Dr Kral has investigated the effects of intestinal diversion on hyperinsulinemia, gastric emptying, intestinal adaptation, microflora and mucosal immunity and performed the first clinical studies of vagotomy for the treatment of obesity. His most recent research concerns early-life stress as a precursor of insulin resistance in monkeys as well as effects of gestational stress on urban health, gene polymorphisms associated with human appetite regulation and the importance of the intrauterine environment and epigenetic changes for the development of adolescent human obesity and insulin resistance. He is a member of the steering committee on Overnutrition of the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science founded in 2011 at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Mandana Arabi MD, PhD

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science

Speakers

Roger A. Fielding, PhD

Tufts University

Roger A. Fielding is Director and Senior Scientist of the Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, and Sarcopenia (NEPS) Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. He is also Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Lecturer of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. Currently, he also serves as the Associate Director of the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.

After graduating from Boston University with a BS in Health Sciences, Dr. Fielding received a Master of Arts in Physical Education from Ball State University in 1985. In 1993, he graduated with his PhD from Tufts University after researching the modulation of skeletal muscle protein metabolism and the effect of exercise-induced muscle injury. Thereafter, he began his research career in the Department of Health Sciences at Boston University, initiating studies that examined the role of skeletal muscle power output on physical function and disability in older adults, as well as parallel studies examining the influence of aging on intracellular signaling events in contracting skeletal muscle. In 2004, Dr. Fielding was recruited to the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and has since conducted numerous clinical studies of exercise and muscle function in older adults. As a Senior Scientist, he has explored the effects of nutritional, pharmacological, and exercise therapies on changes in skeletal muscle structure and function with advancing age, and has examined the role of nutrition and exercise on muscle performance in older animals and humans. Dr. Fielding is an internationally known researcher who studies the underlying mechanisms contributing to the age-associated decline in skeletal muscle mass, the resultant impact on function, and the potential role of exercise, nutrition, and physical activity on attenuating this process.

Dr. Fielding has a strong record of extramural funding including support from the NIH, USDA, foundations and industry. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, and the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism and the Journal of Gerontology for Medical Sciences. He has also served as a reviewer on numerous NIH study sections and was recently elected to the NIH/CSR College of Reviewers.

John Gunstad, PhD

Kent State University

John Gunstad obtained a BA in Psychology from Moorhead State University (Moorhead, MN). He attended graduate school at Ohio University and earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology, with concentrations in Clinical Neuropsychology and Health Psychology. Dr. Gunstad completed his internship and postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at Brown Medical School (Providence, RI). He worked under the supervision of Dr. Ronald Cohen and Dr. Robert Paul, where he began a line of programmatic work in the neurocognitive effects of medical conditions including obesity and cardiovascular disease. He joined the faculty of Kent State University in the Fall of 2005 and is now Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and leads the neuropsychology training program.

Deborah Gustafson, PhD

SUNY Downstate Medical Center; University of Gothenburg

Steven B. Heymsfield, MD

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Steven B. Heymsfield, MD is the Executive Director of Pennington Biomedical Research Center of the Louisiana State University System and he holds the George A. Bray, Jr. Chair in Nutrition. Previously he was the Global Director of Scientific Affairs for the obesity franchise at Merck & Co. where he oversaw scientific aspects of the Company's obesity drug development program. Dr. Heymsfield received a degree in medicine from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and he completed his internship and residency at Emory University, continuing on to become a Fellow in Medicine prior to his Columbia University appointment as Professor of Medicine and Deputy Director, New York Obesity Research Center, in 1986.

Dr. Heymsfield has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers covering topics such as obesity, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, malnutrition, pregnancy, body composition, and caloric expenditure. His contributions to the study of human nutrition led to the TOPS Award from NAASO, the Rhoads Award of the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, and the Forbes Memorial Award Lecture, International Society of Body Composition Research. He was honored for his role in the FDA ban on ephedra, receiving the 2004 NYC Mayor's Award for Science and Technology. Dr. Heymsfield was elected Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition in 2009 and Fellow of the American Society of Parental and Enteral Nutrition in 2012.

In addition to his strong interest in biological method development, Dr. Heymsfield maintains an active clinical research program, extending his earlier research at Columbia University. Dr. Heymsfield is past President of the American Society of Clinical Nutrition and of the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.

Lenore J. Launer, PhD

National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

Dr. Launer received her PhD in epidemiology and nutrition from Cornell University. From 1990 to 1999 she held academic appointments in the Netherlands (Erasmus University Medical School, Free University, National Institute for Public Health) where she collaborated in many epidemiologic studies of neurologic diseases including dementia and migraine headache. Dr. Launer joined the National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program as Chief of the Neuroepidemiology Section in February 1999.

Dr. Launer’s research interests include studies focused on understanding the contribution of genetic, inflammatory, metabolic, vascular, and hormonal factors to sub-clinical and clinical outcomes in brain disease and investigating the links between brain disease and other common diseases of old age. Research is conducted using large epidemiologic studies, which allow testing in the general population, hypotheses on risk/protective factors and mechanisms identified at a more basic science level.

Josef Penninger, MD

IMBA-Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Josef Penninger was born in 1964 in Gurten, Austria. He received a High School education in classical humanities and studied Medicine, Immunology, and History of Arts in Innsbruck, Austria. After his graduation in 1990, he left Austria to pursue postgraduate studies at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. From 1994 to 2002, Josef Penninger worked as a lead researcher at the Amgen Research Institute in Toronto affiliated with the University of Toronto and the Ontario Cancer Institute. In 2002, he accepted the appointment as director of the newly established Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, IMBA, and moved back to Vienna. Currently, Josef Penninger is Full Professor in the Departments of Immunology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, Professor of Genetics at the University of Vienna, Austria, and Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/Peking Union Medical College.

Scientifically, his basic approach is to genetically manipulate and change genes in mice and to determine the effects of these mutations in the development of the whole organism and in diseases. Through these mutations, he tries to establish basic principles of development and basic mechanisms of disease pathogenesis. The main focus of his laboratory lies on heart and lung diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancer, as well as bone metabolism disorders.

Josef Penninger has received various prizes and honors, such as the EU Excellence Award (2004), Elected Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2005), Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine (highest endowed medicine prize in Europe, 2007), Descartes Prize (highest EU research prize, 2007), Carus Medal (2008), ESCI Award for Excellence in Biomedical Investigation, ASMR-Medal of the Australian Society for Medical Research (2009), the Award as Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011) and the Innovator Award, Era of Hope by the US Department of Defense (2012).

David Phillips, PhD

University of Southampton

David Phillips is Professor of Endocrine and Metabolic Programming at the University of Southampton, UK. He is also an Honorary Consultant Physician in Endocrinology and Diabetes for the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust. He trained at the University of Cambridge and St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and following junior hospital appointments was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship at the University of Southampton, where he completed a PhD thesis on the epidemiology of thyroid disease. This work subsequently took him to Zaïre, Central Africa, where he carried out a trial of iodine supplementation on behalf of the UK Charity, OXFAM. On his return he was appointed Lecturer in Endocrinology at the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff. He was appointed to his current position in 1991. In Southampton his research programme has centred on the developmental origins of type 2 diabetes, the metabolic syndrome and related conditions. The work has been funded by the Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, The National Institutes of Health and several UK-based charities. He collaborates extensively with research groups in other universities both in the UK and abroad and holds professorial appointments at the University of Toronto, Canada, and The University of Adelaide, South Australia.

Nikos Scarmeas, MD

University of Athens; Columbia University

Dr. Nikos Scarmeas was born and raised in Athens, Greece. After obtaining an MD degree from the University of Athens he moved to the United States for a neurology residency training, followed by a 2-year clinical fellowship in Aging and Dementia at Columbia University Medical Center. He also completed a Masters degree in Biostatistics – Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Dr Scarmeas joined the faculty of Columbia University in 2002. He is currently an Associate Professor of Neurology and shares his time between research and clinical work at Columbia University and at the University of Athens. His clinical work includes seeing elderly patients with dementias and cognitive dysfunction and supervising and teaching medical students and neurology residents.

His research interests began with the topic of cognitive reserve (i.e. how higher IQ, education, more demanding occupational attainments, or more engagement in cognitive-social-physical leisure - lifestyle activities can help elderly cope better with the damage caused to their brains by Alzheimer’s disease and aging, and therefore reduce their risk for dementia and slow down their rates of cognitive and functional decline). More recently, he has developed a special interest in the contribution of diet (in particular composite dietary patterns such as a Mediterranean-type diet and others) and physical activity in dementias and healthy aging. Dr Scarmeas is the Principal Investigator in studies funded by either the Alzheimer's Association or the NIH-NIA and a Co-Investigator in multiple others. His research work has resulted in more than 100 original publications in highly esteemed journals and multiple presentations in internationally acclaimed scientific conferences - meetings. He reviews for multiple international scientific journals and international funding agencies including the Alzheimer’s Association, the US National Institute of Health, the European Union Marie Curie programs etc.

Yaakov Stern, PhD

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Dr. Stern earned his BA in Psychology at Touro College in New York City. He earned his PhD at the Experimental Cognition program of City University of the City of New York. Dr. Stern directs the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the Department of Neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology in the Departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, as well as in the Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for the Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. He is Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and directs the post-doctoral training program “Neuropsychology and Cognition in Aging.” He is on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer's Association and associate editor of JINS. Dr. Stern’s research focuses on cognition in normal aging and in diseases of aging, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Stern’s research approach includes classic neuropsychological and cognitive experimental techniques, with a strong focus on functional imaging. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers, numerous chapters, and edited a book on cognitive reserve.