A mobile unit from the University of Manitoba will be rolling into Portage in a couple of weeks to carry out some research with a few Portagers..

Peter Jones"The Richardson Centre at the University of Manitoba is active in discovering foods that make people healthy, keep people healthy, and fight off the ravages of old age," says Peter Jones, University of Manitoba Distinguished Professor of Food Science.

He explains canola, flax, and sunflowers are being studied to learn what health attributes they possess. Jones adds it's called the Manitoba Personalized Lifestyle and Research Program and is recruiting 800 people from across the province to learn how those foods intersect with genetics, sleep and even microbes that live in our bodies that influence the development of chronic disease.

Inside the mobile unitParticipants must be between the ages of 30 and 46 and have lived in Manitoba for at least 5 years.

The unit will be set up at the Food Development Centre in Portage la Prairie in mid-August. Two consecutive days will involve each participant undergoing study for two hours per day. Blood samples, measurements of blood pressure, muscle mass and body mass are all part of the study.

Jones says the ultimate goal is to identify a set of lifestyle characteristics that predict good health through old age and minimize the risk of disease. It's intended to be done on a personalized level as well in order to give advice to individuals including a full report describing findings and personal characteristics to be compared with the more global outcome with the 800 overall participants.

 

Contact information:

Website: http://tmplr.ca
Detailed informant at: (204) 480-1042