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- 38 years old
- married, two children, 5 and 8 years old
- researcher in human nutrition
- background: INA-PG, DEA and PhD
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Beatrice Morio
A researcher with a passion for nutrition
(15/12/2006)
Beatrice Morio works as a researcher in the Human Nutrition Unit of the Food and Human Nutrition Research Department in Clermont-Ferrand. She studies changes in the energy metabolism of aging people and seeks to better understand metabolic mechanisms and to determine the impact of metabolic changes on skeletal muscle. Her ultimate goal is “to develop my skills in a workplace that allows me to study everything from the cell to the body as a whole, to understand cellular signalling pathways and to assess their consequences on people's everyday life.”
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Beatrice
Beatrice Morio is passionate about nutrition. The courses on nutrition in developing countries she pursued at Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon and her experiences in the field with physicians and scientists inspired her to pursue a career in nutrition. Her dissertation and thesis were “very well received”, she says modestly.
A thriving workplace
In the twelve years she has worked at the INRA Human Nutrition Laboratory in Clermont-Ferrand, Morio has gained expertise that helps keep her from any kind of routine work: “Specialising in a field over time makes it all the more interesting,” she says. The success of her research is in part due to the diverse background of those she works with: “Physicians, chemists and professors – we all work together here. It helps us keep each other in check: for instance, when we get stuck on a complex mechanistic question, being in contact with physicians, who can contribute clinical case experience, helps us take a step back and look at the facts more objectively.”
Weight gain and muscle loss
Morio is currently researching the metabolic changes that occur during aging and their consequences, especially in terms of nutritional needs. To “draw up nutritional guidelines or to design tools better able to define them, Morio assesses the energy needs of different groups of people – both in good and bad health – using a variety of modern measuring techniques.” When a person ages, muscle mass tends to decrease while fat increases; this reduces the possibility of physical activity and therefore of calorie-burning, which in turn increases the risk of metabolic disease. Morio has found that, in elderly people, loss of muscle mass and lower oxidative capacity of muscle tissue limit the use of fats to provide necessary energy to cells – this increases the likelihood that the fat will be stored. That is where exercise comes in. “We want to make this information available to everyone. But until what age is this true? What intensity and frequency of exercise is required? Our job is to provide answers to these questions in terms that everyone can understand.”
Mitochondria: the key to unlocking the metabolism mystery?
At the mechanistic level, Morio seeks to understand the importance of interactions between muscle and fat mass as part of the aetiology of metabolic diseases associated with excess weight: “We still have many questions on the control of fatty acid flux from food or fat mass, on the impact of physical activity, on the regulation of fatty acid metabolism, and on the effect of metabolic changes on tissues such as skeletal muscle.” At the moment, Morio and other researchers are looking into mitochondria, where the oxidation of fatty acids occurs.
In her personal life, Morio does not have to worry about not burning enough calories. Some of her favourite pastimes are hiking, skiing, mountain biking, hang gliding and running. “There’s no doubt about it – I can’t sit still for long!” Nowadays, however, she has slowed down her outside activities: “I want to be at home more for my children and I'd like to share my passion for the outdoors with them.” But nothing will stop her from regularly going running!
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Written by :
Communications Department
Date of creation : 22/12/2006
Date of last update : 26/12/2006
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