BY: KATHLEEN HAUGHNEY  | PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 15, 2021 |

A Florida State University researcher has received a National Institutes of Health grant to investigate how daily low oxygen exposure affects weight, body composition and metabolic health.

Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology Claire Berryman will receive $2.25 million over five years to examine whether a healthy, calorie restricted diet combined with sleeping in an environment that mimics oxygen levels of higher elevations can be used as an intervention to help individuals with obesity lose weight and improve health.

Berryman and her team will follow 60 participants over eight weeks. Participants will receive a tent and generator system that creates a low oxygen or a normal oxygen environment around their bed in their home. The low oxygen environment will be similar to the oxygen levels in Aspen, Colorado and the normal oxygen environment will mimic sea level.

Participants will sleep in the tent for at least eight hours each night. The idea for the research stems from work Berryman conducted as a postdoctoral researcher with the Army, looking at how body weight, energy expenditure and appetite were altered in military personnel operating at high elevation.

“Military personnel living and working at high altitude for three weeks lost more than double the amount of weight we would expect under the same conditions at sea level,” she said. “This was detrimental to a population trying to maintain body weight, muscle mass and peak performance.”

Though Berryman’s initial work had looked at personnel trying to maintain their current weight and muscle mass, she wondered how that environment could affect body fat, particularly in those struggling with weight loss.

“We want to see if overnight low oxygen exposure, when used in combination with a healthy, low calorie diet, makes weight loss easier to achieve and maintain,” she said.

There are several ways low oxygen exposure may alter body weight and metabolic health. Research has shown our bodies burn more calories while at rest in low oxygen compared to normal oxygen environments, likely due to activation of the nervous system. Researchers also have found that appetite decreases with exposure to lower oxygen levels, possibly due to increased levels of the hormone leptin. When leptin levels are increased, appetite is suppressed, making it easier to eat smaller portions. Finally, low oxygen environments have been shown to shift our body’s fuel preference to use more glucose and, over time, improve glucose and insulin concentrations.

Participants in the study will be between the ages of 22 and 45 with a body mass index between 30 and 40 kg/m2. For adults, a person with a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or more is considered obese.

Participants also will be provided with all their meals during this period to standardize food and nutrient intake.

“A big part of this intervention is the diet,” Berryman said, “We know proper diet and exercise are the cornerstone of good health. If shown to be beneficial, low oxygen exposure would be recommended in combination with diet and exercise, not as a replacement. So, we wanted to test our hypothesis in the context of current recommendations for weight loss, which include consuming a well-balanced, calorie restricted diet.”

In addition to Berryman, several other FSU researchers will contribute to this work. Professors Robert Hickner and Chester Ray and Assistant Professor Stephen Hennigar from the FSU College of Health and Human Sciences, Professor Angelina Sutin and Physician and Associate Professor Gregory Todd from the FSU College of Medicine, Associate Professor Hongyuan Cao from the FSU College of Arts and Sciences, and Professor Eric Ravussin from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center are co-investigators on the grant.

Simple conversations can sometimes inspire surprising responses. That’s what Professor of Biomedical Sciences Sanjay Kumar learned recently after explaining his team’s work on a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study produced promising new opportunities to develop treatments for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). His work caught the eye of the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation (PERF).

Kumar was asked to explain the study to Herbert Winokur Jr., who sits on the the PERF board of directors. Winokur invited along his daughter, Annick, who majored in cognitive studies at Vanderbilt and founded sportsometry.org

Kumar, adept at explaining highly scientific and complex information in an easy-to-understand way, had no expectations.  “I just welcome and enjoy the opportunity to talk about the research being done by my team,” he said.

The conversation was appreciated.

“We both were impressed by what you are doing and by your easy manner in explaining to lay people like us,” Winokur wrote to Kumar the next day.

His gratitude, in fact, extended to unsolicited financial support for the Kumar Lab.   PERF made a $10,000 gift in recognition of how such research might benefit children suffering from TLE.

“It’s exciting and rewarding to know there are those who believe in the power of research,” Kumar said. “I am truly grateful for their no-strings-attached generosity. This kind of philanthropy reflects in a good way on the caliber of research being done here at the College of Medicine.”

Amanda Sesker, a postdoctoral scholar in Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, has been accepted into the National Institute on Aging’s prestigious Butler-Williams Scholars Program.

The program provides early-career researchers and scientists the opportunity to meet and network with established researchers in the field of aging research, learn more about NIA science and funding opportunities, and sharpen grant writing skills.

Sesker was selected on the strength of her experience and training, affiliation with a NIA-supported research university, letters of recommendation, a statement of objectives for inclusion, and a specific aims page detailing her research proposal.

“It is a very competitive program that only accepts the most promising early career researchers who have the potential to make a significant impact in aging research,” said College of Medicine Professor Angelina Sutin, who brought Sesker into her lab in the fall of 2020. “Amanda is the first post-doc from my lab to get accepted into the program. Many alums from the [Butler-Williams] program, however, have made significant contributions to the field of aging…I expect Amanda will experience similar benefits from the program that will accelerate her research career.”
 
The intensive, three-day program – traditionally held at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., but conducted virtually due to the pandemic for the second consecutive year – began Aug. 24.

Sesker described it as a “mentorship program” for those invested in aging research, which includes a series of presentations by NIH and NIA researchers and reviewers within the field. In addition to learning about the review process when applying for grants, each of the scholars will have an opportunity to discuss their specific research.

“They provide feedback and show what reviewers are looking for to help tool your application,” said Sesker, who will be applying for funding with Sutin as her mentor when she submits her research application in February of 2022.

Dovetailing off work done in the Sutin lab, Sesker’s research will look at Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and how those relate to cognitive function and dementia risk in older age, and the role personality traits play in outcomes. Her research will focus on the longitudinal University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study involving approximately 20,000 Americans and supported by NIA and the Social Security Administration.

“I’m expecting that adverse childhood experiences are going to be related to earlier onset of dementia and cognitive impairment in older age,” Sesker said. “And, that key personality traits such as conscientiousness and neuroticism are going to be exaggerating the effect.”

 Sesker came to FSU after earning her Ph.D. in psychology from the National University of Ireland, Galway, nearly two years ago.

“Because Amanda did not have a background in aging before she started to work with me, she brought a fresh perspective to our cognitive aging work that opened new connections that had not been made before,” Sutin said. “I expect Amanda's creativity and ability to integrate across areas will lead to important new discoveries, as well as help advance her career.”