“Malnutrition, both over- and undernutrition, is the leading risk factor for morbidity and mortality globally,” says Saurabh Mehta, associate professor of global development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and associate professor of global health, epidemiology and nutritional sciences in the College of Human Ecology. “At the same time, nutritional status may be more amenable than other risk factors to modification at both the individual and the population level.”
Mehta is a physician with expertise in epidemiology, nutrition, and infectious disease. He focuses a major part of his public health research on nutrition and the interplay between nutrition, inflammation, and infection. “Whether you are considering cancer or an infection, nutrition and inflammation are central,” he says. “Our bodies produce and regulate, to a certain extent, the flow of nutrients and inflammatory molecules based on whether or not a disease state or threat exists. In an ideal setting, this regulation creates an environment that is hostile to the invading pathogen or the disease process.”
Read the full article produced by Cornell Research.
Header image: Produce at a farmer's market held by the Dilmun Hill student farm in 2016. Photo by Lindsay France/University Relations.
