The Brusco De Freitas Group: Nutrition and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Diet appears as a strong candidate among the possible factors involved in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), considering that some foods are associated with the maintenance of a healthy intestine and, in some way, participate in the regulation of intestinal inflammation through modulation of the microbiota. Various diets have been linked to non-communicable diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. In addition, some evidence shows that maternal nutrition can directly impact fetal development and the quality of the child's diet and susceptibility to disease, requiring greater understanding of the relationship between nutrition and the health-disease process.

The Brusco De Freitas Group, with the participation of important collaborators from PREDICT, the National Center of Excellence and other international institutions, has as its main objective to understand how diet influences the development and worsening of IBD, to improve the quality of life and to pave the way for a better dietary guidance for a growing global number of people with chronic illnesses.

Assistant Professor, Dr. Maiara Brusco De Freitas, PhD, leads this group in collaboration with Professor Tine Jess, MD, DMSc, who is founder and director of PREDICT, and experts in nutrition, epidemiology, gastroenterology and statistics. Dr. Freitas has a degree and a postgraduate degree in nutrition and has relocated to Denmark to build up her own group at PREDICT National Center of Excellence. She has experience in clinical nutrition and population studies related to nutritional status, working mainly in the areas of research related to inflammation, oxidative stress, bariatric surgery, cystic fibrosis, intestinal microbiota, anthropometry, and micronutrient deficiency, and consequently has several publications in scientific journals in specialized areas.

Author ORCID: 0000-0003-1737-8918