Functional Foods Research Group

Obesity as part of metabolic syndrome is a major lifestyle disorder throughout the world. Current drug treatments for obesity produce small and usually unsustainable decreases in body weight with the risk of major adverse effects. Surgery has been the only treatment producing successful long-term weight loss. As a different but complementary approach, lifestyle modification including the use of functional foods could produce a reliable decrease in obesity with decreased comorbidities. Our research includes functional foods such as berries, vegetables, fibre-enriched grains and beverages such as tea and coffee. Our studies also focus on development of animal models of inflammatory diseases such inflammatory bowel disease, chronic kidney disease and arthritis. These models are then used to investigate the effects of functional foods in attenuation of these disorders.