October 8th, 2018
Back
in the 1990s, dietary fat was considered “Enemy Number One.” In the late ’80s,
new research had found that a diet high in saturated fat was a major cause of
poor health, so a low-fat food craze was born. Cookies, crackers, cake, ice
cream, bread—just about everything had a low-fat version in the ’90s. But by 2001, Americans were
fatter than ever. What happened?
My
food scientist sister helped explain it to me: After removing the fat, food
companies needed a way to maintain the original flavor, so they (sometimes
dramatically) dialed up the sugar and salt content of the low-fat items. Plus,
people patted themselves on the back for making smart food choices and then
proceeded to wildly overeat. Almost as quickly as it started, the low-fat craze
fizzled.
Fast
forward to today, and we’re still trying to figure out how to eat for optimal
health. We’ve learned more about what different diets do for our bodies, and
now researchers are zeroing in on a new enemy: sugar.
We’ve
long known it rots teeth and is loaded with calories, but doctors are also
learning that sugar wreaks havoc on cell function and disease progression. With
that in mind, the Grand Rapids, MI-based nonprofit Van
Andel Research Institute (VARI) has launched what it hopes
will be the most comprehensive research program of its kind to investigate the
ways metabolism and nutrition drive health and disease.
“Metabolism
is one of the oldest molecular sciences,” says Andrew Pospisilik, the incoming
director of VARI’s Institute of Epigenetics. “Up until about a decade ago, we
thought of it as housekeeping: every cell needs energy, and it’s that simple.
What has exploded in the past 10 years is that it’s not true. Every cell has
its own fingerprint for how to use metabolism. It drives cell outcomes and
defines how they do their jobs—it shapes whether it’s a passive T cell or keeps
allergies at bay or attacks cancer.”
What’s
become clear to Pospisilik and other researchers is that metabolism is at the
center of every single biological process. Some diseases might be “wholly
metabolic in origin,” such as diabetes, while others, including cancer, are
influenced by metabolic dysfunction. For example, there is increasing evidence
that Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative movement and neurological disorder,
appears to be partly caused by disruptions in cellular metabolism.
“In
cancer, metabolism is really important for cells,” says Russell Jones, who will
lead VARI’s new metabolism and nutrition initiative. “What we’re doing now is
trying to understand road maps. If a cancer cell has a mutation, how does it
reset metabolism to fuel growth?”
Jones
says that in the past 30 years, the prevalence of “modern world
diseases”—Alzheimer’s, asthma, and diabetes, for example—has skyrocketed, but
the genetic pool hasn’t changed much. “There is evidence that sugar is
connected. It makes cells more aggressive and it accelerates
neurodegeneration.”
The
team at VARI working on the initiative is made up of six scientists who each
have different areas of expertise, including nutrition, genetics, and
immunology. Three, including Jones, previously worked at Quebec’s McGill
University, and two are coming to VARI from the Max Planck Institute of
Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany.
Jones
says their work will include identifying factors that contribute to cancer,
diabetes, and other disorders, and then understanding how metabolism and
nutrition impact cell function. From there, the scientists will aim to
translate their research discoveries into products and strategies to improve
public health.
Other
goals include determining how a parent’s nutrition and environment can
influence health of their future children, as well as to what extent people can
escape their genetic fate. This last part—how parents can affect children that
aren’t even a twinkle in their eyes yet—is at the vanguard of epigenetic
research, Pospisilik says. (While the program is not necessarily focused on
developing new drugs, VARI has an intellectual property team that will work
with the medical community to commercialize findings if appropriate, Jones
says. However, some companies are working specifically on drug research related
to metabolism, including Kyn Therapeutics and Agios Pharmacueticals.)
“Since
every organism starts with a single cell, how do parental cells go into the
sperm or egg and cause lifelong changes in their offspring? It’s very difficult
to study, but we already have data suggesting much of obesity is caused by
genetic reprogramming,” he adds. “We’re fortunate to assemble a diverse team of
scientists and top equipment, and we can get everyone together in the same room
to discuss it. Within five years, we want the program to be viewed as a center
of excellence for this type of research.”
Ultimately,
Pospisilik says, the goal of VARI’s initiative is to fully understand
metabolism’s impact on cell processes and find strategies to improve human
health. “If we can identify, cure, and treat diseases, it will catalyze other
centers here at VARI. Metabolism unites them all.”
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