Natural Products and Metabolic Disorders

Britt Burton-Freeman, Ph.D. is the Director of Nutrition and Health Promoting Foods platform leader at the Institute for Food Safety and Health at Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Freeman has been involved in obesity and metabolic disease research for over 20 years, including basic science and clinical research in academic, biotechnology and drug development settings. Dr. Freeman’s current research interests are in mitigating disease process through dietary approaches focused on the health promoting properties of whole foods. Specific disease targets are vascular disease and obesity, including food intake regulation. In her current appointment, she leads a public health initiative with FDA/CFSAN to develop and provide underpinning science for comprehensive approaches using innovative processing solutions to support the availability of safe food with health opportunities. Dr. Freeman is an active member of multiple professional societies dedicated to health and disease abatement including the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Society and the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. Dr. Freeman earned a M.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition Science with an emphasis in Endocrinology and Physiological Chemistry at the University of California, Davis. Indika Edirisinghe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Food Science and Nutrition at the Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH), a research consortium of the United states Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). He is also the associate Director/ Center for Nutrition Research at IFSH. Dr. Edirisinghe has nearly 15 years experiences in the area of nutritional science, biochemistry and molecular biology. His research focuses on the effect of natural products on endothelial function, blood pressure regulation, insulin resistance, inflammatory and oxidative stress responses during acute and chronic interventions. The research approach includes human cell culture, animal models and human clinical trials. He has authored over 40 peer reviewed-original research articles and has over 100 total publications including other articles, meeting presentation and book chapters. He is a member of a variety of professional organizations including: The American Society for Nutrition (ASN), The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and American Clinical Society (ACS).

Natural Products and Obesity.
Anti-obesity potential of natural products.
Role of natural products in ameliorating oxidative stress and inflammatory conditions associated with obesity.
Natural product lipid absorption inhibitors to fight obesity.
Natural products and adipocyte biology: Anti-obesity actions.
Increasing energy expenditure and decreasing appetite using natural products.

Natural Products and Metabolic Syndrome. Role/efficacy of natural products in ameliorating lipid disorders/metabolism associated with metabolic syndrome. Role/efficacy of natural products in ameliorating endothelial function/hypertension associated with metabolic syndrome. Natural products, metabolic, and cognitive links.

Natural Products and Type 2 Diabetes. Natural Products influencing on carbohydrate digestion and absorption for systemic glycemic control.
Role of natural products in insulin signaling: opportunities to enhance insulin action naturally.
Making synthetic drugs for treating T2DM work better with less: a role for combination therapy.

Liver and Natural products. The role of natural products in hepatic diseases and relationship with metabolic disorders, such as lipid metabolism, glucose homeostasis, bile acid metabolism and signaling.