Jennifer L Miles-Chan

Jennifer L Miles-Chan
University of Auckland · School of Biological Sciences

PhD

About

79
Publications
18,587
Reads
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1,314
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2017 - present
University of Auckland
Position
  • Lecturer
May 2009 - June 2017
University of Fribourg
Position
  • Maître-assistante (Oberassistentin)

Publications

Publications (79)
Article
Full-text available
Background/Objective: The oral contraceptive pill (OCP) is widely used by women worldwide, yet the influence of the OCP on carbohydrate metabolism remains under-investigated, with existing studies being few and largely cross-sectional. The study objective was to assess, for the first time, the effect of the combined OCP on postprandial glycaemic re...
Article
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Kawakawa (Piper excelsum) is an endemic medicinal plant widely consumed by Māori in New Zealand. Presence of diverse biologically active phytochemicals in kawakawa may underpin its putative therapeutic anti‐inflammatory properties. However, no human studies on its anti‐inflammatory effects are yet undertaken. Blood samples from a randomized control...
Article
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Nut-based products are a good source of high-quality plant protein in addition to mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and may aid low-glycaemic dietary strategies important for the prevention of type 2 diabetes (T2D). In particular, they may be advantageous in populations susceptible to dysglycaemia, such as Asian Chinese. The present study aime...
Article
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Global increases in metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), especially within Asian populations, highlight the need for novel approaches to dietary intervention. The Tū Ora study previously evaluated the effects on metabolic health of including a nut product into the diet of a New Zealand cohort of Chinese participants with overweight an...
Article
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Biological samples of lipids and metabolites degrade after extensive years in −80 °C storage. We aimed to determine if associated multivariate models are also impacted. Prior TOFI_Asia metabolomics studies from our laboratory established multivariate models of metabolic risks associated with ethnic diversity. Therefore, to compare multivariate mode...
Article
Scope Piper excelsum (kawakawa) has a history of therapeutic use by Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is currently widely consumed as a beverage and included as an ingredient in “functional” food product. Leaves contain compounds that are also found in a wide range of other spices, foods, and medicinal plants. This study investigates the human meta...
Preprint
Full-text available
Purpose Piper excelsum (kawakawa), a vascular plant endemic to Aotearoa, New Zealand, is of cultural and medicinal importance to Māori. Presence of biologically active compounds in kawakawa may underpin its putative beneficial health properties, particularly its anti-inflammatory effects. However, no human studies on its anti-inflammatory effects e...
Article
Depending on the nature of their sports, athletes may be engaged in successive weight loss (WL) and regain, conducing to “weight cycling.” The aims of this paper were to systematically (and meta‐analytically when possible) analyze the post‐WL recovery of (i) body weight and (ii) fat mass; fat‐free mass; and performance and metabolic responses in we...
Article
Aim Intra-pancreatic fat deposition (IPFD) while hypothesised to impair beta-cell function, its impact on alpha-cells remains unclear. We evaluated the association between IPFD and markers of pancreatic cells function using whey protein. Methods Twenty overweight women with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and low or high IPFD (<4.66% vs ≥4.66%) cons...
Article
Accounting for 5-15% of total daily energy expenditure, postprandial thermogenesis (PPT) refers to an acute increase in resting metabolic rate (RMR) in the hours after eating. This is largely explained by the energy costs of processing the macronutrients of a meal. Most individuals spend the majority of the day in the postprandial state, thus over...
Article
A person's metabolic rate corresponds to the whole-body level sum of all oxidative reactions occurring on the cellular level. The energy expenditure (EE) can be categorized into various essential and facultative processes. In sedentary adults, basal metabolic rate is the largest contributor to total daily EE, and interindividual variability can be...
Article
While there is an increasing prevalence of dieting in the overall population, weight loss practices could be a risk factor for weight gain in normal-weight individuals. The aim of the present work was to systematically review all the studies implicating diet restriction and body weight evolution in normal-weight people. The literature search was re...
Article
Full-text available
The chemical profiles of kawakawa (Piper excelsum) leaves were analysed through targeted and non-targeted LC-MS/MS. The phytochemical profile was obtained for both aqueous extracts representative of kawakawa tea and methanolic extracts. Sixty-four compounds were identified from eight leaf sources including phenylpropanoids, lignans, flavonoids, alk...
Article
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Ectopic fat accumulation in non-adipose organs, such as the pancreas and liver, is associated with an increased risk of cardiometabolic disease. While clinical trials have focused on interventions to decrease body weight and liver fat, ameliorating pancreatic fat can be crucial but successful intervention strategies are not yet defined. We identifi...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Piper excelsum (kawakawa) is an endemic shrub of Aotearoa, New Zealand, of cultural and medicinal importance to Māori. Its fruits and leaves are often consumed. These tissues contain several compounds that have been shown to be biologically active and which may underpin its putative health-promoting effects. The current study investiga...
Article
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Although causality is yet to be confirmed, a considerable volume of research has explored the relationships between cow milk consumption, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Contrastingly, it has not been comprehensively examined whether milk of non-bovine origin can provide cardiometabolic protection. This narrative review outlines the m...
Article
Context: Rapid weight loss (RWL) is a common precompetitive strategy used by athletes in weight-class sports and carries with it an increased risk to future cardiometabolic health. The Rapid Weight Loss Questionnaire (RWLQ) is a self-reported tool designed to identify and characterize such weight loss practices. Objectives: After developing a re...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: To assess associations between physical activity (PA), body composition, and biomarkers of metabolic health in Pacific and New Zealand European (NZE) women who are known to have different metabolic disease risks. Methods: Pacific (n = 142) or NZE (n = 162) women aged 18–45 years with a self-reported body mass index (BMI) of either 18.5–2...
Article
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Refeeding after caloric restriction induces weight regain and a disproportionate recovering of fat mass rather than lean mass (catch-up fat) that, in humans, associates with higher risks to develop chronic dysmetabolism. Studies in a well-established rat model of semistarvation-refeeding have reported that catch-up fat associates with hyperinsuline...
Article
Weight cycling, repeated cycles of weight loss and weight regain over time, is commonplace amongst many population groups. Although the effect of weight cycling on future obesity and cardiometabolic risk is still hotly debated, evidence does indicate that individuals who were normal weight prior to weight cycling are more susceptible to its adverse...
Article
The recovery of body weight after substantial weight loss or growth retardation is often characterized by a disproportionately higher rate of fat mass vs lean mass recovery, with this phenomenon of 'preferential catch-up fat' being contributed by energy conservation (thrifty) metabolism. To test the hypothesis that a low core body temperature (Tc)...
Article
Full-text available
Implementation of efficacious dietary interventions to regulate energy balance requires understanding of the determinants of individual response. To date, information regarding individual variability in response to elevated meal protein content is lacking. This study investigates whether sex and/or oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use play a role in t...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: The recovery of body composition after weight loss is characterized by an accelerated rate of fat recovery (preferential catch-up fat) resulting partly from an adaptive suppression of thermogenesis. Although the skeletal muscle has been implicated as an effector site for such thrifty (energy conservation) metabolism driving catch-up fat,...
Article
Increasing lifestyle energy expenditure has long been advocated in the prevention and treatment of obesity, as embodied in the ancient prescription of Hippocrates (the ‘father of modern medicine’) that people with obesity should eat less and exercise more. However, the long‐term outcome of exercise alone or in combination with dieting in obesity ma...
Article
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With current ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ obesity prevention and management strategies proving largely ineffective, the focus has shifted towards a more tailored, individualized approach. However, investigation of the mechanisms underlying inter‐individual variability in metabolic profile and response to intervention often yield conflicting results. Indeed,...
Conference Paper
Background: There is a need to establishthe range of proteinintake that would constitute an acceptable ‘high-protein’ diet for weight management, particularly towards the prevention of obesity and weight relapse. The pilot study described here aimed to (i) define the dose–response relationship between meal protein content and postprandial thermogen...
Conference Paper
Introduction: Obesity is more prevalent in women than men worldwide, with the rising prevalence amongst young women of child-bearing age of particular concern. Whilst the underlying mechanism for this gender disparity is largely unknown, oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use may be a factor that contributes to the alteration in energy balance in young...
Article
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Collateral fattening refers to the process whereby excess fat is deposited as a result of the body's attempt to counter a deficit in lean mass through overeating. Its demonstration and significance to weight regulation and obesity can be traced to work on energy budget strategies in growing mammals and birds, and to men recovering from experimental...
Article
Recent body composition studies on the island of Mauritius in young adults belonging to the two main ethnicities—Indians (South Asian descent) and Creoles (African/Malagasy descent)—have shown gender-specific ethnic differences in their body mass index (BMI)-Fat% relationships. We investigated here whether potential gender and ethnic differences in...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: There is much interest in the role of dietary protein for weight control. However, there remains a need to characterize individual determinants of the thermogenic effects of protein. This study aimed to investigate the influence of menstrual cycle phase and the combined, monophasic oral contraceptive pill on the thermogenic response to...
Article
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There is increasing recognition that low-intensity physical activities of daily life play an important role in achieving energy balance and that their societal erosion through substitution with sedentary (mostly sitting) behaviors, whether occupational or for leisure, impact importantly on the obesity epidemic. This has generated considerable inter...
Article
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Background There is increasing interest in the use of pill-sized ingestible capsule telemetric sensors for assessing core body temperature (Tc) as a potential indicator of variability in metabolic efficiency and thrifty metabolic traits. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and accuracy of measuring Tc using the CorTemp® system....
Conference Paper
Introduction: Successful approaches to weight control should elicit effects on both sides of the energy balance equation, i.e., energy intake and expenditure. For this reason there has been much interest in the role of dietary protein, which has been demonstrated to favourably affect satiety, thermogenesis, body weight and body composition. However...
Article
Full-text available
Standardized approaches to assess human energy expenditure (EE) are well defined at rest and at moderate to high‐intensity exercise, but not at light intensity physical activities energetically comparable with those of daily life (i.e., 1.5–4 times the resting EE, i.e., 1.5–4 METs). Our aim was to validate a graded exercise test for assessing the e...
Article
Full-text available
PurposeDue to sedentarity-associated disease risks, there is much interest in methods to increase low-intensity physical activity. In this context, it is widely assumed that altering posture allocation can modify energy expenditure (EE) to impact body-weight regulation and health. However, we have recently shown the existence of two distinct phenot...
Article
Isometric thermogenesis as applied to human energy expenditure refers to heat production resulting from increased muscle tension. While most physical activities consist of both dynamic and static (isometric) muscle actions, the isometric component is very often essential for the optimal performance of dynamic work given its role in coordinating pos...
Article
Among the multitude of dietary and lifestyle behaviours that have been proposed to contribute to the obesity epidemic, those that have generated considerable research scrutiny in the past decade are centred upon sleep behaviours, sedentary behaviours (sitting or lying while awake) and diminished low-level physical activities of everyday life, with...
Article
Full-text available
Background The disease risks associated with sedentary behavior are now firmly established, and consequently there is much interest in methods of increasing low-intensity physical activity. In this context, it is a widely held belief that altering posture allocation can modify energy expenditure (EE) to impact upon body weight regulation and health...
Data
Individual energy expenditure and respiratory quotient responses to standing compared to sitting. (PDF)
Data
Subject characteristics. Individual demographic, anthropometric, and body composition data for each study participant. (PDF)
Article
Full-text available
The body's ability to rapidly and appropriately regulate blood pressure in response to changing physiological demand is a key feature of a healthy cardiovascular system. Passively tilting the body, thereby changing central blood volume, is a well-recognized and controlled method of evaluating this ability. However, such studies usually involve sing...
Article
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While putative feedback signals arising from adipose tissue are commonly assumed to provide the molecular links between the body’s long-term energy requirements and energy intake, the available evidence suggests that the lean body or fat-free mass (FFM) also plays a role in the drive to eat. A distinction must, however, be made between a ‘passive’...
Article
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Background and Aims Global estimates of overweight and obesity prevalence are based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) body mass index (BMI) cut-off values of 25 and 30 kg m⁻², respectively. To validate these BMI cut-offs for adiposity in the island population of Mauritius, we assessed the relationship between BMI and measured body fat mass in...
Article
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Globally, the popularity of energy drinks is steadily increasing. Scientific interest in their effects on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems in humans is also expanding and with it comes a growing number of case reports of adverse events associated with energy drinks. The vast majority of studies carried out in the general population report...
Article
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Low-intensity physical activity is increasingly promoted as an alternative to sedentary behavior. However, much research to date has focused on moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity, and in particular dynamic work, with the effect of low-intensity isometric exercise (<4 METs) on substrate utilization yet to be explored. Here we investig...
Article
To the Editor Dr Svatikova and colleagues1 investigated acute cardiovascular responses in healthy adults 30 minutes after ingestion of an energy drink (containing 62 g of sugar, caffeine, and taurine) compared with a placebo drink (containing approximately 62 g of sugar but no caffeine or other stimulants). In addition, the authors investigated the...
Article
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Background and aim: There is increasing recognition about the importance of enhancing energy expenditure (EE) for weight control through increases in low-intensity physical activities comparable with daily life (1.5-4 METS). Whole-body vibration (WBV) increases EE modestly and could present both a useful adjuvant for obesity management and tool fo...
Article
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Background/objectives: Drinking large amounts of water is often recommended for weight control. Whether water intake stimulates energy and fat metabolism is, however, controversial with some studies reporting that drinking half a litre or more of water increases resting energy expenditure (REE) by 10-30% and decreases respiratory quotient (RQ), wh...
Chapter
Background: Acute soft tissue injuries are common and costly. The best drug treatment for such injuries is not certain, although non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often recommended. Objectives: To assess the effects (benefits and harms) of NSAIDs compared with other oral analgesics for treating acute soft tissue injuries. Searc...
Article
Indirect calorimetry, the measurement of O2 consumption and CO2 production, constitutes an invaluable tool as the most common method for analyzing whole body energy expenditure, and also provides an index of the nature of macronutrient substrate oxidation, namely carbohydrate (CHO) versus fat oxidation. The latter constitutes a key etiological fact...
Article
Full-text available
The energy drink Red Bull (RB) has recently been shown to elevate resting blood pressure (BP) and double product (reflecting increased myocardial load). However, the extent to which these effects can be explained by the drink's caffeine and sugar content remains to be determined. We compared the cardiovascular impact of RB to those of a comparable...
Article
Objective Consumption of energy drinks is increasing amongst athletes and the general public. By virtue of their bioactive ingredients (including caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone, and B-group vitamins) and paucity of calories, sugar-free “diet” versions of these drinks could be a useful aid for weight maintenance. Yet little is known about the a...
Article
Full-text available
Background A number of different pathways to obesity with different metabolic outcomes are recognised. Prenatal undernutrition in rats leads to increased fat deposition in adulthood. However, the form of obesity is metabolically distinct from obesity induced through other pathways (e.g. diet-induced obesity). Previous rat studies have shown that ma...
Article
Energy expenditure (EE) during sitting is widely assumed to be higher than that while lying down, but supporting evidence is equivocal. Despite this, resting EE in the sitting position is often used as a proxy for basal metabolic rate. Here we investigate whether EE differs in the comfortable seated position compared to supine (lying) position. EE...
Article
Full-text available
Limitations of current methods: The assessment of human variability in various compartments of daily energy expenditure (EE) under standardized conditions is well defined at rest [as basal metabolic rate (BMR) and thermic effect of feeding (TEF)], and currently under validation for assessing the energy cost of low-intensity dynamic work. However, b...
Article
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Reducing sitting-time may decrease risk of disease and increase life-span. In the search for approaches to reduce sitting-time, research often compares sitting to standing and ambulation, but the energetic cost of standing alone versus sitting is equivocal, with large variation in reported mean values (0% to >20% increase in energy expenditure (EE)...
Article
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Among countries which have undergone a rapid socio-economic and nutrition transition over the past few decades, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius is among those with the greatest surge in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and CVD. The aim of the present study was to characterise the BMI and cardiovascular functions of children and adolescents of...
Article
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Catch-up growth, a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, is characterized by hyperinsulinemia and accelerated body fat recovery. Using a rat model of semistarvation-refeeding that exhibits catch-up fat, we previously reported that during refeeding on a low-fat diet, glucose tolerance is normal but insulin-dependent glucose utilization is decreased in sk...
Article
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Metabolic flexibility is the body's ability to adapt to changing energy demand and nutrient supply. Maternal undernutrition causes growth restriction at birth and subsequent obesity development. Intriguingly, metabolic flexibility is maintained due to adaptations of muscle tissue. The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental pathwa...
Article
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Waist circumference (WC) is a key variable to assess in health management as it is a proxy of abdominal fat mass and a surrogate marker of cardiometabolic disease risk, including the metabolic syndrome. Recently, a portable non-contact device calculating WC (ViScan) has been developed, which hence allows the tracking of WC independently of the inte...
Article
To determine whether emergency nurse practitioners (ENPs) are as equivalent to emergency medicine (EM) registrars in minor injury management in a New Zealand environment. A Prospective observational audit (chart review) of a non-consecutive cohort of patients with minor trauma was conducted. The primary outcome measure was length of stay. The secon...
Article
To describe in-hospital resuscitation outcomes and factors associated with survival at Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand. The Utstein template for in-hospital cardiac arrests was used. A retrospective audit of all cardiac arrests 2004-06 determined patient demographics, resuscitation time intervals, interventions, survival and neurological outcom...
Article
Full-text available
The present study investigates whether excessive fat accumulation and hyperinsulinaemia during catch-up growth on high-fat diets are altered by n-6 and n-3 PUFA derived from oils rich in either linoleic acid (LA), α-linolenic acid (ALA), arachidonic acid (AA) or DHA. It has been shown that, compared with food-restricted rats refed a high-fat (lard)...