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Assistant Professor; Campus Alberta Innovate Program Chair in Nutrition, Food and Health; Director, Human Nutrition Research Unit
Human Nutrition Research Unit, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, Division of Human Nutrition, University of Alberta, Canada
Dr. Carla Prado is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada and a Campus Alberta Innovates (CAIP) Chair in Nutrition, Food and Health. She is the Director of the Human Nutrition Research Unit, a state-of-the-art research and training facility that supports cutting-edge research on the physiology and causes of nutritional problems through assessment of body composition, whole body energy metabolism, diet, and physical activity.
Dr. Prado is an expert in assessing nutritional status through the precise measurement of body composition and energy metabolism. Her research has shown for the first time the prevalence and clinical implications of sarcopenic obesity (concurrent appearance of low muscle and high fat) in cancer, and has provided evidence of the independent effect of body composition on cancer recurrence, treatment and survival. The focus of her current research program is to develop targeted nutrition interventions for the prevention and treatment of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in patients with cancer. She is currently the Principal Investigator of two randomized controlled trials investigating the impact of nutrition intervention on body composition and health.
Dr. Prado holds a dietitian title from both Canada and Brazil. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada, and has completed further training at the Cross Cancer Institute (Canada), the National Institutes of Health (USA) and Newcastle University (UK). She is an Associate Editor of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle and has been recently recognized as a Fellow of the Obesity Society (USA). She serves as a member of the Body Composition Clinical Guidelines group for the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, and the National Cancer Institute Sarcopenia Workshop Planning Committee.