Welcome to the Humans of Nutrition Podcast brought to you by Registered Nutritionists Anna Wheeler and Prof Danielle McCarthy.

In this podcast Anna and Danielle chat to Professor Sue Lanham-New, Professor of Human Nutrition and Head of Nutritional Science Department at University of Surrey.

Sue’s research focuses on Vitamin D – she is passionate about helping people living with osteoporosis and happily volunteers her time and expert knowledge to osteoporosis charities. A true “Human of Nutrition”!

Anna and Danielle step back in time, returning to the University of Surrey where they studied, became friends and first met Sue in the lecture theatre!

Fast forward to April 2024, and Anna and Danielle are back at University of Surrey, delivering a careers workshop to final year nutrition students in the morning, and catching up with Sue in the afternoon!

We hear about the ground-breaking research on Vitamin D that Sue leads on. At the start of this journey, the UK did not have an RNI for Vitamin D due to the assumption that we had enough sunlight in summer months to generate, store and utilise through the winter months. It’s clear that the evidence around Vitamin D moved on, thanks in no small part to Sue and her colleagues, leading to the establishment of an RNI for Vitamin D in 2016.

Sue is generous in giving credit to her team, informing us about ongoing research projects such as the differing Vitamin D requirements in ethnic groups, Vitamin D / iron interaction, and investigating Vitamin D supplementation in the management of acute respiratory tract infections. She is honest about the difficulties securing funding for research projects but demonstrates how resilience and determination pays off.

Here's the science bit – do you know:

· the difference between Vitamin D2 and Vitamin D3?

· their different metabolic pathways?

· which type is preferred for supplementation?

· your micrograms from your international units?

· what the RNI is?

· what the safe upper limit is?

· why, on food labelling, the NRV is set at half the RNI?

· how fruit and vegetables impact bone health? (Fun question - Are tomatoes high in Vitamin D? Yes – if you ‘gene edit’ them!)

Listen in to find out all of the above and more!

Sue is offered a ‘magic wand’ – something she’d like to see change in the next 10 years. Her response is simple – for Vitamin D deficiency to be eradicated. Yet public health messaging around Vitamin D supplementation is not getting through – how can health professionals get this message across?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As nutrition professionals working in multiple contexts, we want to use our diverse experience to help organisations achieve their nutrition and health goals by providing them with the expertise they need, when they need it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Get in touch to find out more about our company, Nutrition Talent and how we could work together.

Web: www.nutritiontalent.com

Email: info@nutritiontalent.com

LinkedIn: @NutritionTalent

Instagram: @Nutrition_talent

Twitter: @NutritionTalent

Follow Anna: LinkedIn @Anna Wheeler

Follow Danielle: LinkedIn @DrDanielleMcCarthy