Nutrition Research Unit
Nutrition's role in promoting health and the treatment of disease is of great importance to many Mayo Clinic investigators. Even if nutrition is not the primary focus of their research, they often wish to control or estimate nutrient intake due to the influence of nutrition on many areas of physiology.
To study the effect of nutrition or control nutrition in research, many investigators use the services and resources of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) Nutrition Research Unit. The unit offers expertise and resources to study various diets and specific nutrients in a unique, controlled environment.
Clinical Research and Trials Unit supervisors oversee nutrition-related activities. The staff consists of research dietitians, research diet technicians and a metabolic kitchen operated by dietary assistants. The research dietitians are experts in the field of nutrition-related research activities. They use state-of-the-art nutritional analysis software to plan precise diets or analyze the nutrient intake of subjects.
The dietitians, assisted by the diet technicians, provide these nutrition-related services to aid researchers:
- Assistance in designing nutrition-related research projects and assessing nutrition-related resources required to meet the needs of a protocol
- Precise nutrition control through weighed diets, test meals or formulas that are calculated and prepared in the metabolic kitchen
- Collection of nutrient data of subjects through diet histories, food record analysis or validated food frequency questionnaires (FFQs), including online FFQs
- Development of nutrition-related educational materials and delivery of nutritional education to individual research subjects as well as group education programs
- Development of nutrient-specific databases for specialized study needs if not already available (such as oxalate, phytochemicals, fatty acids and glycemic index)
- Analysis and interpretation of nutrition-related data and results
- Assistance with writing scientific publications of nutrition-related research
Nutrition services in the Clinical Research and Trials Units
The Saint Marys Clinical Research and Trials Unit (CRTU) features a full metabolic kitchen offering a variety of food choices. It is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and is staffed by specially trained dietary assistants overseen by the research dietitians.
The metabolic kitchen offers these services:
- Nutrient-controlled, precisely weighed diets that are prepared to ensure nutritional consistency and accuracy.
- Weighed meals may be provided on an inpatient or outpatient basis.
- Weighed meals may be served at specific times to meet the needs of the research protocol or to accommodate participants' schedules.
- Diet compliance monitored by dietary assistants.
Research dietitians and/or the diet technicians meet with participants prior to their involvement in a diet-controlled study to acquire food preferences and explain how and why their diets will be controlled.
The Charlton CRTU offers a limited food service from the nourishment center, which is equipped with a microwave oven and refrigerator. If necessary, weighed meals prepared at the metabolic kitchen in Saint Marys may be delivered to the Charlton CRTU or elsewhere at Mayo as required to accurately conduct a study.
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