Lincoln – A remarkable new effort is underway at the University of Nebraska's Innovation Campus, called "Food for Health." From its own description:
Our research focuses on microbes living in the human gut microbiome.
Trillions of microbes – bacteria, viruses, fungi and more – live in the human gut microbiome, which normally acts in concert with the body to regulate organs, develop our immune systems, fight disease and metabolize foods. Abnormalities in the gut microbiome are being discovered as factors in many diseases.
Diet is one of the biggest factors that influences humans' gut microbiomes.
Because microbiomes are fed by the same foods that we consume, we can develop foods with health-promoting ingredients that work by selectively feeding beneficial microbes or prohibiting growth of more harmful species. This new interface between agriculture and medicine holds tremendous potential to transform how we think about preventing and treating disease.
This is exactly the kind of research that makes me proud to be a Nebraska taxpayer supporting my land-grant university's initiative. Food for Health is a venture that also involves UNMC and UNO and should soon attract major federal research funding support.
Skeptics might ask what's the big deal, haven't our universities always been doing such research?
No. Strange as it may seem, there has been little previous research on the connection between agriculture and medicine. Medical research has focused on developing pharmaceuticals to cure diseases, with far less attention to disease prevention through improved nutrition. Agricultural research for decades has focused on "production agriculture," caring more about yields than researching the specific beneficial values of the foods produced.
Moreover, the Innovation Campus itself got off to an inauspicious start. Some of its first attempts at innovation involved big livestock feedlots and collaborations with processed food companies. This came at a time of increasing evidence that processed foods were a significant cause of the world's growing obesity and diabetes epidemics.
The Nebraska Food for Health Center is turning that around and making the Innovation Campus potentially a focal point for the entire world in health care advances. Understanding microbiomes is true innovation, worthy of the name.
The current coronavirus pandemic draws further attention to the importance of nutrition in health care. Those with underlying diseases are most susceptible to Covid-19. While it is critical that a vaccine be developed against the virus, it is likewise essential to shore up the underlying health of people who will face it.
There is no better place than Nebraska to link agriculture to medicine, through nutrition. The University of Nebraska was once home to the nation's leading nutritionist of her time, Professor Ruth Leverton. The Nebraska Food for Health Center is following in a proud tradition.
The Nebraska Food for Health Center is turning that around and making the Innovation Campus potentially a focal point for the entire world in health care advances. Understanding microbiomes is true innovation, worthy of the name.
The current coronavirus pandemic draws further attention to the importance of nutrition in health care. Those with underlying diseases are most susceptible to Covid-19. While it is critical that a vaccine be developed against the virus, it is likewise essential to shore up the underlying health of people who will face it.
There is no better place than Nebraska to link agriculture to medicine, through nutrition. The University of Nebraska was once home to the nation's leading nutritionist of her time, Professor Ruth Leverton. The Nebraska Food for Health Center is following in a proud tradition.
