Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour

Last updated

The Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour ("IFBB") is a Registered Charity [1] with the primary focus of commissioning research into how food, nutrition and diet can affect brain function and behaviour.

Contents

Trustees include France Jackson (Chairman) and John Stein (physiologist). Former trustees include Hugh Montefiore, Henry Kitchener, 3rd Earl Kitchener, Baroness Greenfield, Nicholas Frayling and Lord Ramsbotham.

The Science Fellows are Kathleen Taylor (biologist), Dr Jonathan Tamman and Dr Rachel Gow.

The Patron is Prue Leith.

History

In 1984 a charity known as South Cumbria Alternative Sentencing Options was founded to investigate whether nutrition could play a role in minimising recidivism in young offenders. The organisation became Natural Justice in 1991, and finally the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour in 2010. In 2019 the Charity adopted the working name of "Think Through Nutrition".

Research

The institute has a collaborative research programme with Oxford University. It facilitated a £1.4 million research project in three prisons funded by the Wellcome Trust. The study commenced in January 2008 with Professor John Stein (physiologist) of Oxford University as Principal Investigator. [2] [3] It was carried out at three Young Offenders Institutions - HM Prison Hindley, Greater Manchester; Lancaster Farms, Lancashire; and HM Prison Polmont, Falkirk.

The institute has been carrying out a study at Robert Clack School into whether nutritional supplements can improve disadvantaged pupils' cognitive skills and behaviour. This is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation under their 'food' strand.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Economic Affairs</span> Neoliberal think-tank

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a right-wing pressure group and think tank registered as a UK charity. Associated with the New Right, the IEA describes itself as an "educational research institute", and says that it seeks to "further the dissemination of free-market thinking". It says it does so by "analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellcome Trust</span> British healthcare research charity established in 1936

The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health. The aim of the Trust is to "support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone." It had a financial endowment of £29.1 billion in 2020, making it the fourth wealthiest charitable foundation in the world. In 2012, the Wellcome Trust was described by the Financial Times as the United Kingdom's largest provider of non-governmental funding for scientific research, and one of the largest providers in the world. According to their annual report, the Wellcome Trust spent GBP £1.1Bn on charitable activities across their 2019/2020 financial year. According to the OECD, the Wellcome Trust's financing for 2019 development increased by 22% to US$327 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Wellcome</span> Anglo-American businessman

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge to form GlaxoSmithKline. He left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's largest medical charities. He was a keen collector of medical artefacts which are now managed by the Science Museum, London, and a small selection of which are displayed at the Wellcome Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Biobank</span> Long-term biobank study of 500,000 people

UK Biobank is a large long-term biobank study in the United Kingdom (UK) which is investigating the respective contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure to the development of disease. It began in 2006.

Patrick Holford is a British author and entrepreneur who endorses a range of controversial vitamin tablets. As an advocate of alternative nutrition and diet methods, he appears regularly on television and radio in the UK and abroad. He has 36 books in print in 29 languages. His business career promotes a wide variety of alternative medical approaches such as orthomolecular medicine, many of which are considered pseudoscientific by mainstream science and medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Ramsbotham, Baron Ramsbotham</span> British Army general (1934–2022)

General David John Ramsbotham, Baron Ramsbotham, was a British Army officer, who later served as HM Chief Inspector of Prisons. He was awarded a life peerage in 2005, and later sat on the crossbenches of the House of Lords.

Geraint Ellis Rees is Vice-Provost of research, innovation & global engagement at University College London (UCL). Previously he served as Dean of the UCL Faculty of Life Sciences, UCL Pro-Provost, Pro-Vice-Provost (AI) and a Professor of Cognitive Neurology at University College London. He is also a Director of UCL Business and a trustee of the Guarantors of Brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Rowett Institute</span> Nutrition research institution in Aberdeen

The Rowett Institute is a research centre for studies into food and nutrition, located in Aberdeen, Scotland.

John Frederick Stein is a British physiologist. He is a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and holds a professorship in physiology at the University of Oxford. He has research interests in the neurological basis of dyslexia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Biomedical Campus</span>

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe. The site is located at the southern end of Hills Road in Cambridge, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsie Widdowson</span> British nutritionist

Elsie Widdowson, was a British dietitian and nutritionist. She and Dr Robert McCance, a pediatrician, physiologist, biochemist, and nutritionist, were responsible for overseeing the government-mandated addition of vitamins to food and wartime rationing in Britain during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging</span> Laboratory of the University College London

The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging at University College London is a world-leading interdisciplinary centre for neuroimaging research based in London, United Kingdom. Researchers at the Centre use expertise to investigate how the human brain generates behaviour, thoughts and feelings and how to use this knowledge to help patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders. Human neuroimaging allows scientists to non-invasively investigate the brain structure and functions including Action, Decision Making, Emotion, Hearing, Language, Memory, Navigation, Seeing, Self awareness, Social Behaviour and the Bayesian Brain

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Harper</span> British gerontologist

Sarah Harper FRAI CBE is a British gerontologist, who established Oxford's Institute of Population Ageing, and became the University of Oxford's first Professor of Gerontology. She served on the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology between 2014 and 2017 and in 2017 was appointed Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Sarah was appointed a CBE in 2018 for services to the Science of Demography.

Y Touring Theatre Company was a national touring theatre company which produced original plays and debates exploring contemporary issues. It was founded in 1989 by Nigel Townsend. The company was based in Kings Cross, London, England and was a former operation of Central YMCA.

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) is an American non-profit medical research organization that provides funding for biomedical research, STEM education, and areas of career development for scientists. Since 1970, it has been headquartered in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

Bobby Baker is a multi-disciplinary artist and activist working across performance, drawing and multi-media. Baker is the artistic director of the arts organisation Daily Life Ltd. A hallmark of Baker's work is food being used as an artistic medium. As John Daniel writes, 'Food - shopping for it, cooking it, serving it, consuming it - is a consistent feature in Baker's work, which focuses on the seemingly mundane, everyday details of life' (2007:246) Drawing from her own personal and family experiences, her work explores the relationship between art and lived experience and addresses the splitting of women's domestic and professional lives. Claire MacDonald points out how her artistic trajectory - moving from early food sculptures to later performances and installations - reflects the changing agenda of women's movement.

Jane Wardle FBA FMedSci was a professor of clinical psychology and director of the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College London. She was one of the pioneers of health psychology in the UK and internationally, known for her seminal work on the contribution of psychology to public health, particularly the role of psychological research in cancer prevention and work on the behavioural and genetic determinants of eating behaviour and obesity.

Dame Anne Mandall Johnson DBE FMedSci is a British epidemiologist, known for her work in public health, especially the areas of HIV, sexually transmitted infections and infectious diseases.

Lady Edwina Louise Snow is an English criminologist, philanthropist and prison reformer. She is a founder and a trustee of the charity The Clink, and founder of the charity One Small Thing. She is the sister of Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster.

The 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's Official Birthday celebrations during the month of June. They were announced on 1 June 2022, in anticipation of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. They were the last honours granted by the Queen before her death on 8 September 2022.

References

  1. "INSTITUTE FOR FOOD, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOUR, registered charity no. 517817". Charity Commission for England and Wales.
  2. "Prison study to investigate link between diet and behaviour | Wellcome Trust". Wellcome.ac.uk. 28 January 2008. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  3. Laurance, Jeremy (29 January 2008). "Prison study to investigate link between junk food and violence - Health News - Health & Families". The Independent. Retrieved 28 October 2012.