A PROJECT to investigate the relationship between obesity and water intake is being launched at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Nutritionist Dr Laura O’Connor has received the prestigious 2016 British Nutrition Foundation Drummond Pump Priming Award for her research on fluid intakes and cardio-metabolic disease.

Laura is a lecturer in Nutritional Sciences in the Department of Health Professions. Her expertise and research interests are in population health nutrition and nutritional epidemiology of obesity and diabetes.

As part of its management of the Drummond Memorial Fund, the British Nutrition Foundation provides two grants every year, to university lecturers and research fellows in human nutrition, to undertake pilot research.

This year, Laura was the recipient of one of these grant awards for her work in water intakes and obesity and related metabolic disorders, such as heart disease and stroke.

The number of people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity worldwide is enormous and escalating. It is well known that diet plays a role in the development of these diseases but there is one component of diet that has been largely neglected by research to date – water. Although healthy people can easily and quickly rectify mild dehydration, through increasing thirst signals and decreasing urinary output, there may be adverse health outcomes of chronic low water intake

The award was presented to her by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal (pictured) during the British Nutrition Foundation Annual Meeting at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Laura said: “Given the mounting evidence for an association of water intake and health and the current lack of data, I am very grateful to receive the 2016 BNF Drummond Pump Priming Award to enable me to take the first steps in conducting a thorough investigation of fluid intakes.”

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