Alice Lichtenstein | |
|---|---|
 Lichtenstein in 2015 | |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Research in diet and heart disease |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nutrition science |
| Institutions | Tufts University |
| Doctoral advisor | D. Mark Hegsted |
Alice Hinda Lichtenstein is an American professor and researcher in nutrition and heart disease. In 2006, Shape magazine named Lichtenstein one of ten "Women Who Shaped the World". [1] In 2019, Tamar Haspel called her a "grande dame of nutrition." [2]
Lichtenstein earned a B.S. in nutrition from Cornell University, M.S. in Nutrition from the Pennsylvania State University, and M.S. and D.Sc. in nutritional biochemistry from Harvard University. [1] She completed her post-doctoral training at the Cardiovascular Institute, Boston University School of Medicine.
Lichtenstein is the Stanley N. Gershoff Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy of Tufts University. She is also director and senior scientist of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, and professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. [3]
Lichtenstein is currently a member of the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the National Academy of Sciences. [1] She served on multiple National Academy of Sciences committees, most recently the Review of Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. She is executive editor of the Tufts Health and Nutrition Letter.
Lichtenstein has spent her research career assessing the interplay between diet and heart disease risk factors. In her capacity as director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, Lichtenstein oversees research projects on a wide range of nutrition and cardiovascular disease related topics. Her research interests have included trans fatty acids; soy protein and isoflavones; sterol and stanol esters; modified vegetable oils with different fatty acid profiles, glycemic indexes and biomarkers of nutrient and food intake. Investigations have been conducted in animal models, cell systems, humans, and in population-based studies. Systematic review methods are also applied to the field of nutrition. [4]
Lichtenstein was vice-chair of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. [3] She also served on the 2000 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. [3] This committee develops a scientific report that informs the Dietary Guidelines for Americans . [5]
Lichtenstein is the primary author of the American Heart Association's Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations, [3] [6] and served on the task forces on practice guidelines for the 2013 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology's Guideline on the Treatment Of Blood Cholesterol to Reduce Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Adults and Guideline on Lifestyle Management to Reduce Cardiovascular Risk.
Lichtenstein is a frequent contributor to the media, which can sometimes struggle to report nutrition stories accurately when the science is preliminary. [7] For example, she provided a cautionary note to The New York Times when a 2014 meta-analysis found that saturated fat was not implicated in heart disease. She told Anahad O'Connor that it would be unfortunate if the study resulted in people eating too much butter and cheese. [6] NPR said she wrote a letter to the editor [8] at The New York Times correcting Mark Bittman when he announced that "Butter Is Back" [9] and that she cited a 2013 review by the American Heart Association that recommends limiting saturated fat. [10] [11] And she explained for The Washington Post that it would be a shame if people overconsumed grass-fed beef in the false hope that it contains a generous amount of omega-3 fatty acids when in fact it contains very little. [12] She gave a summary of the 2015 scientific report for the U.S. dietary guidelines to Hari Sreenivasan for PBS Newshour. [13]
Lichtenstein is the author of nearly four hundred peer-reviewed articles and numerous book chapters. [1]
In 2005 she co-authored Strong Women, Strong Hearts with Miriam E. Nelson and Lawrence Lindner. [14] She is associate editor of the Journal of Lipid Research .
In 2018 Lichtenstein received the Alumni Award of Merit from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Supelco Research Award from the American Oil Chemists Society, the first woman to receive the award since its inception in 1968. She received an Honorary Lifetime Membership Award in Recognition of Extraordinary Expertise and Contributions to Clinical Lipidology from the National Lipid Association, and was elected as a Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition. In 2019 she received the Conrad A. Elvehjem Award for Public Service in Nutrition from the American Society for Nutrition. She has numerous other awards dating back to the 1970s, including an honorary Ph.D. in 2005, from the University of Eastern Finland. [1]
Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in the Western world such as yogurt, cheese, milk and butter. A facility that produces dairy products is known as a dairy. Dairy products are consumed worldwide to varying degrees. Some people avoid some or all dairy products because of lactose intolerance, veganism, or other health reasons or beliefs.
In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.
Margarine is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was originally named oleomargarine from Latin for oleum and Greek margarite. The name was later shortened to margarine.
A food pyramid is a representation of the optimal number of servings to be eaten each day from each of the basic food groups. The first pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974. The 1992 pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was called the "Food Guide Pyramid" or "Eating Right Pyramid". It was updated in 2005 to "MyPyramid", and then it was replaced by "MyPlate" in 2011.
Coconut oil is an edible oil derived from the kernels, meat, and milk of the coconut palm fruit. Coconut oil is a white solid fat below around 25 °C (77 °F), and a clear thin liquid oil in warmer climates. Unrefined varieties have a distinct coconut aroma. Coconut oil is used as a food oil, and in industrial applications for cosmetics and detergent production. The oil is rich in medium-chain fatty acids.
A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched chain of carbon (C) atoms. Along the chain, some carbon atoms are linked by single bonds (-C-C-) and others are linked by double bonds (-C=C-). A double bond along the carbon chain can react with a pair of hydrogen atoms to change into a single -C-C- bond, with each H atom now bonded to one of the two C atoms. Glyceride fats without any carbon chain double bonds are called saturated because they are "saturated with" hydrogen atoms, having no double bonds available to react with more hydrogen.
The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits and traditional food typical of southern Spain, southern Italy, and Crete, and formulated in the early 1960s. It is distinct from Mediterranean cuisine, which covers the actual cuisines of the Mediterranean countries. While inspired by a specific time and place, the "Mediterranean diet" was later refined based on the results of multiple scientific studies.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia, congenital heart disease, valvular heart disease, carditis, aortic aneurysms, peripheral artery disease, thromboembolic disease, and venous thrombosis.
Hypercholesterolemia, also called high cholesterol, is the presence of high levels of cholesterol in the blood. It is a form of hyperlipidemia, hyperlipoproteinemia, and dyslipidemia.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
The DASH diet is a dietary pattern promoted by the U.S.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to prevent and control hypertension. The DASH diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods. It includes meat, fish, poultry, nuts, and beans, and is limited in sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, red meat, and added fats. In addition to its effect on blood pressure, it is designed to be a well-balanced approach to eating for the general public. DASH is recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a healthy eating plan. The DASH diet is one of three healthy diets recommended in the 2015–2020 US Dietary Guidelines, which also include the Mediterranean diet and a vegetarian diet. The American Heart Association (AHA) considers the DASH diet "specific and well-documented across age, sex and ethnically diverse groups."
Mary Gertrude Enig was a nutritionist and researcher known for her unconventional positions on the role saturated fats play in diet and health. She promoted skepticism towards the consensus in the scientific and medical communities that diets high in saturated fats can contribute to development of heart disease, while she advocated for a diet based on whole foods and rich in certain saturated fats.
The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.
The chronic endothelial injury hypothesis is one of two major mechanisms postulated to explain the underlying cause of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (CHD), the other being the lipid hypothesis. Although an ongoing debate involving connection between dietary lipids and CHD sometimes portrays the two hypotheses as being opposed, they are in no way mutually exclusive. Moreover, since the discovery of the role of LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, the two hypotheses have become tightly linked by a number of molecular and cellular processes.
David Mark Hegsted was an American nutritionist who studied the connections between food consumption and heart disease. His work included studies that showed that consumption of saturated fats led to increases in cholesterol, leading to the development of dietary guidelines intended to help Americans achieve better health through improved food choices.
The Seven Countries Study is an epidemiological longitudinal study directed by Ancel Keys at what is today the University of Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene & Exercise Science (LPHES). Begun in 1956 with a yearly grant of US$200,000 from the U.S. Public Health Service, the study was first published in 1978 and then followed up on its subjects every five years thereafter.
Salim Yusuf is an Indian-born Canadian physician, the Marion W. Burke Chair in Cardiovascular Disease at McMaster University Medical School. He is a cardiologist and epidemiologist. Yusuf has criticized the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and disputes the scientific consensus on dietary sodium and saturated fat intake.
Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, Jean Mayer Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable. Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Some of his areas of interest include healthy diet patterns, nutritional biomarkers, Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare, nutrition innovation and entrepreneurship, and food policy. He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally, he has served in numerous advisory roles, and his work has been featured in an array of media outlets.
Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Trace concentrations of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods. Since consumption of trans fats is unhealthy, artificial trans fats are highly regulated or banned in many nations. However, they are still widely consumed in developing nations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a goal to make the world free from industrially produced trans fat by the end of 2023.
Fat hydrogenation is the process of combining unsaturated fat with hydrogen in order to partially or completely convert it into saturated fat. Typically this hydrogenation is done with liquid vegetable oils resulting in solid or semi-solid fats.
| Authority control databases: Academics |
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