The NINA Study
Effect of Nutritional Interventions on Autophagy
What we eat affects the autophagy process that cleanses our cells of damaged molecules. This process slows biological ageing.
Autophagy is a recycling process that happens inside the cells that make up tissues in your body. Autophagy removes and degrades damaged and unwanted molecules and breaks them down into smaller parts that can be reused to build new cell parts.
Importantly, autophagy can be modified through nutrition in laboratory settings.
To properly answer questions about whether nutritional strategies can change autophagy in humans, our research group has developed a first-ever test to measure autophagy in human blood.
This project aims to measure the effect of diet composition on autophagy in blood, using two different diets designed by a qualified dietitian. This will provide information about whether autophagy responds to nutrition in humans, and if it does, how nutrition could be used to treat or prevent diseases known to be impacted by changes in autophagy such as Alzheimer's disease and heart disease.
Please note: this study is no longer recruiting participants.
If you have any questions about the NINA Study, please contact our team at nina@sahmri.com or phone (08) 8128 4570 or 0491 718 286.
Project Leader
This project is funded by BrightFocus Foundation
SAHMRI is located on Kaurna Country. We pay respects to the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are committed to embracing knowledge and culture as we continue our working journey to incorporate Aboriginal health research across all of our themes and further reconciliation.
Read more"Tirki nguta tappa tangka marninithi"
(Learning and knowledge are the pathway to alter the mind)
- Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien, Kaurna Elder
