Improving health outcomes through precision nutrition

Laureate Professor Clare Collins’ research in nutrition technologies and interventions to personalise nutrition therapies has had a major impact on current thinking around nutrition and dietary patterns in health and chronic disease prevention.

An internationally distinguished leader in nutrition and dietetics, Laureate Professor Collins has a research track record that places her performance in the top 1 per cent of the world’s most cited scientists in her field of research.

She’s been awarded more than $33m in research grants, published over 550 manuscripts and supervised over 50 PhD candidates.

In 2021, she received the prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council’s Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award for Leadership in Clinical Medicine and Science as the highest-ranked female applicant for her research in personalised nutrition.

Two years later, she was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to nutritional health, dietetic research, scientific organisations and science communication. This made her only the second member of the professional body, Dietitians Australia, ever to be recognised at this level.

The same year, she was also honoured by the University of Newcastle with the award of the Alumni Medal for her contribution to professional excellence.

Global work driving a paradigm shift

Laureate Professor Collins’ research includes developing and evaluating the impact of nutrition interventions based on life stage and risk of nutrition-related conditions, including heart disease and type-2 diabetes. She’s also developed personalised nutrition eHealth tools that have broad reach and impact on improving eating patterns, diet-related health and wellbeing.

Her current research examines metabolic and dietary biomarkers that can be used to personalise nutrition.

As co-director of the Food and Nutrition Research Program at the Hunter Medical Research Institute, she’s built a diverse team of collaborators, including dietitians, biochemists, computer scientists, biomedical and software engineers, and health professionals, to ensure her research program is cutting edge.

These collaborations also include government and non-government organisations, industry and researchers from other universities in Australia and globally, which have made major contributions to knowledge on the impact of improving diet quality and food patterns on health and wellbeing.

As Laureate Professor Collins explains, “We’re driving a paradigm shift that’s improving the delivery of medical nutrition therapy to under-served groups based on life-stage, socio-economic status or geographic location, for who the chronic disease burden is 40-50 per cent higher.”

Tools to help people eat and feel better

The eHealth tools she’s helped develop include the Australian Eating Survey and the online program No Money No Time: Healthy Eating on a Budget website, supported by the nib foundation.

The Australian Eating Survey (AES) is a validated and reliable tool to measure food and nutrient intake over the past 3-6 months that has been evaluated in Australian populations from the ages of two years and is based on 20 years of research.

“AES can be used for clinical practice, research, personal use and by businesses to help improve the health and wellbeing of employees,” says Laureate Professor Collins.

To date, the AES tool has been used by more than 100 research teams across Australia and completed by 40,000 individuals.

Meanwhile, the Healthy Eating Quiz (HEQ) is a brief online quiz designed to rate the overall quality and variety of healthy foods a person usually eats and to identify areas that could be improved. The quiz has been taken over 700,000 times worldwide.

After completing the HEQ quiz, the No Money, No Time website can be linked to personalised healthy recipe suggestions for individuals with limited time and money. NMNT is used by organisations including Headspace, Samaritans and diabetes programs in Newcastle, Western Sydney, Victoria and state health departments.

Together, these tools have created a highly accessible, cost-effective way to help people to eat better, feel better and reduce risk for diet-related chronic disease. However, alone, these aren’t enough.

“It’s one thing to develop innovative, accessible methods for assessing and personalising dietary advice, but that needs to go hand-in-hand with policies and programs that support engagement and equitable access to technology-supported nutrition advice, no matter where the individual might live or work.”

Recognised expert and commentator

As a result of her work in diet and nutrition, spanning four decades, Laureate Professor Collins has contributed to many important committees for government and research organisations.

Current contributions include to the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, Heart Foundation of Australia, Health and Wellbeing Queensland and the Fruit and Vegetable Consortium.

She’s also a fellow of four prestigious bodies: the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS), the Nutrition Society of Australia, Dietitians Australia, and the Royal Society of NSW.

In addition, Laureate Professor Collins has been awarded three research fellowships by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

She believes her fellowships are a way to create more awareness around nutrition being a leading contributor to the global burden of disease, the importance of evidence-based food, nutrition and diet advice and why we need stronger policies to improve nutrition for our most vulnerable people.

She’s also passionate about working with the media to communicate nutrition science for the benefit of government, other scientists and the general public.

To this end, she’s become a highly sought-after nutrition media commentator, having conducted thousands of radio, print and TV media interviews. These include ABC, BBC, and as a regular guest of Dr Karl on TripleJ Science Hour and Shirtloads of Science.

In addition, she’s authored over 120 articles for The Conversation, with over 15 million readers internationally. Plus, she’s co-created the EdX Massive Open Online Course, The Science of Weight Loss - Dispelling Diet Myths, completed by over 67,000 people across 180 countries.

Continuing her work in cystic fibrosis

In addition to her achievements in personalised nutrition, Laureate Professor Collins’ research in cystic fibrosis, which she began after graduating, has had a lasting impact in Australia and worldwide.

Her efforts in this area included looking at how pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) can help children with CF with fat absorption. She also demonstrated that lifetime continuous care within a special CF unit leads to improved growth function.

Holistically, this body of research has led to changes in international guidelines and supported clinicians, children, and their families.

“Through this work, we helped ensure those children stayed as well as possible while new therapies were still being researched”, says Laureate Professor Collins. “Many children have lived long enough to now receive these therapies,”

Leaving a nutritious legacy

Laureate Professor Collins has always had a move forward and pay it forward attitude. She’s proud that her research outputs in personalised nutrition and cystic fibrosis are used nationally and internationally, and her work benefits individuals and health outcomes.

Looking to the future, she believes the best way for her to build impact and leave a legacy is through her work with PhD students—the next generation of researchers.

“My work in precision nutrition won’t get finished in my lifetime,” she says. “But there’s a lot of attention in this area globally, and I can’t wait to see what unfolds. We don’t know all the answers yet, but we will eventually, and that’s why doing the science right now is so important.”