Mike Petriello, a postdoctoral trainee, in Bernard Henning’s lab at the University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center, is studying the effect of nutrition on reducing the effect of toxic exposures. 

Petriello says people who eat a lot of red meat produce a biomarker of cardiovascular disease that is related to environmental pollution. “We actually think that you can do some things, for yourself and for your children. If you eat healthy foods, you can protect against the environmental pollution. Our research actually is showing that there are interactions between diet and toxicology.”

Petriello explains that there are thousands of pollutants sitting in our fat tissue. “We call it a body burden. Decrease your body burden, decrease your adiposity, decrease your fat.

“If you buffer yourself, through possibly nutrition or through exercise, then you may be protected no matter what the chemical is.”

See all of the research under way at the UK Superfund Research Center by visiting their site: http://www.uky.edu/superfund.