“Food is the top risk factor for early death in the U.S., and culinary medicine could transform the problem into the solution.”
Jaclyn Albin, M.D.
Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and Leader of the Culinary Medicine Program
UT Southwestern
.…on improving nutrition education in an era of unprecedented diet-related health problems.
From obesity to cardiovascular disease, we live in an era of unprecedented diet-related health problems. But Dr. Albin, who leads the Culinary Medicine program at UT Southwestern, and her team are trying to cook up a solution by reviewing programs at medical schools across the U.S.
Dr. Jaclyn Albin
The review of programs by UT Southwestern researchers has been published in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The programs use “teaching kitchens” to give health professionals skills that can help patients make healthy dietary changes while enjoying nourishing, accessible, affordable, and delicious food,
“This work is the very first scoping review of medical school-based Culinary Medicine programs in the U.S.,” Albin said in a statement. “We anticipate this to be a pivotal resource for the many medical schools seeking to launch programs and needing a collated literature base as well as information about funding, assessment strategies, and lessons learned.”
From food allergies to IBS, issues have been increasing
Albin notes that the nutrition-disease puzzle has only gotten more difficult lately.
“This has become increasingly complex as more patients face food allergies and intolerances, special dietary or nutritional needs, diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, and much more,” she said.
One solution is culinary medicine—a field where UT Southwestern has been an innovator. Since launching its program in 2015, UTSW’s Culinary Medicine team has taught in kitchens across Dallas-Fort Worth for medical students, residents, fellows, other health professionals, and patients.
The team has recently gone virtual, launching a clinical service line for consultations with other health care providers. More things will launch over the next several months, including group cooking classes and one-on-one visits between patients and registered dietitians.
“I’ve always had a passion for teaching students and patients about nutrition, lifestyle, and other environmental influences on health,” Albin said, and as her program grows, she’s hoping its impact will be felt increasingly in North Texas and beyond.
Other researchers who contributed to the review published in Academic Medicine include first author Courtney Newman and Justin Yan—both UTSW medical students—and Sarah Messiah of the University of Texas School of Public Health.
For more on what’s new and next in North Texas, check out Every Last Word.
Get on the list.
Dallas Innovates, every day.
Sign up to keep your eye on what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth, every day.
R E A D N E X T
-
Read “who said what” in our roundup of quotes about all things North Texas, including ENO8's Jeff Francis; MyndVR's Chris Brickler and Ted Werth; Axxess' John Olajide; the Urban Land Institute's Ron Pressman; Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson; the Mavs Foundation's Katie Edwards; UT Arlington's Yi Hong; HomeUSA.com's Ben Caballero; ParkHub's George Baker Sr.; and more.
-
The University of North Texas BioDiscovery Institute's $1.4 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation is seeding research in sustainable medicine—literally. “What we're thinking long-term is that if plants can store medicines in seeds, you eat the seeds, and the medicine is already contained. You don't have all these factories, you don't need any chemicals—it's just there and available,” said UNT lead researcher Elizabeth Skellam.
-
As many North Texans try to move on from the pandemic, Dr. Bell is focused on the "tens of millions of patients" who've developed long-haul COVID—and who are experiencing life-altering symptoms long after their COVID-19 infection cleared.
-
Levy has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A founding writer at Wired, he's widely considered to be the premier tech journalist in the U.S. He’s covered the digital revolution since the early 1980s, reporting every major trend and profiling its key figures. Today, as a keynote speaker on the closing day of Dallas Startup Week, he took stock of how we got here—and what's next.
-
Mark Cuban has some hot takes on the metaverse, and he doesn't stop there. He made a recent virtual appearance on the YouTube channel Altcoin Daily to share his thoughts on Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Cardano, cryptocurrency in general, and more.
