A University of Alberta researcher has received a prestigious national fellowship to help women with breast cancer stay stronger during treatment.<\/p>\n
Powered by a Dorothy Killam Fellowship<\/a>, nutrition expert Carla Prado<\/a> will investigate, for the first time, the specific protein requirements needed to help combat muscle loss for women undergoing chemotherapy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Awarded annually to between five and eight scholars across Canada, and worth $160,000 over two years, the fellowship supports research projects of broad significance and widespread interest within the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, engineering or studies linking any of these disciplines.<\/p>\n \u201cI am incredibly proud of Carla\u2019s dedication to health care and improving the lives of others through her innovative research,\u201d says Rickey Yada, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences<\/a>. \u201cI look forward to seeing her accelerated success with the help of this fellowship.\u201d<\/p>\n With an overall goal of improving nutrition recommendations for people with cancer<\/a>, Prado\u2019s work through the Killam fellowship will help fill a research gap for patients with breast cancer, the most common type among women in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe know this group experiences significant muscle changes during treatment, often even in early stages. There is also a major gap in protein metabolism research in females, so this work is both clinically important and scientifically overdue,\u201d Prado says.<\/p>\n Muscle loss increases treatment side-effects, delays recovery, lowers quality of life and in some cases may even affect survival<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Protein is one of the most important nutritional factors influencing muscle health, as a key nutrient needed to maintain muscle, support immune function and help the body repair itself. But while intake recommendations exist, they\u2019re based on broad estimates rather than direct measurement, Prado notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe body\u2019s needs during chemotherapy may be higher than what current guidelines assume, and if requirements are underestimated, even motivated patients may still fall short.\u201d<\/p>\n To pinpoint those protein needs, Prado and a team of post-doctoral and graduate researchers, with support from the University of British Columbia, will study breath and urine samples from patients.<\/p>\n Participants will consume controlled amounts of protein, and the researchers will measure how their bodies use it at different intake levels to find a \u201cbreak point\u201d for when their nutritional requirements are met.<\/p>\n \u201cBy finding the sweet spot for the amount of protein that supports the body during treatment, it ensures that the patient\u2019s needs are truly met, not just estimated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The research will help improve clinical nutrition guidelines for dietitians counselling patients, will be turned into practical education tools and could also be used to create easily accessible materials like a cookbook<\/a>, she suggests.<\/p>\n The work will also benefit other people being treated for cancer, Prado adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt lets us establish a scientific model that can then be applied and adapted to other cancers and stages of care.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, this work will help people live longer and better lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Carla Prado is a Distinguished University Professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Integrative Nutrition, Body Composition and Energy Metabolism<\/a>. She is a member of the Women and Children\u2019s Health Research Institute<\/a>, the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta<\/a>, the Alberta Diabetes Institute<\/a>, the Institute for Smart Augmentative and Restorative Technologies and Health Innovations<\/a>, and the Alberta Transplant Institute<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A University of Alberta researcher has received a prestigious national fellowship to help women with breast cancer stay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11026,49,48,7714,18356,177916,28867,207868,84,422,395,7430,55732,13687],"class_list":["post-529443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-breast-cancer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cancer","tag-cancer-treatment","tag-carla-prado","tag-chemotherapy","tag-dorothy-killam-fellowship","tag-health","tag-muscle","tag-nutrition","tag-protein","tag-sdg3","tag-well-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}