Download Press Kit in PDF
Read Press Release, December, 2004
Read "The Chilton Fish Ranking," an excerpt from the book
Contact: Ellen Silberman
Associate Director, Publicity
212-698-7076
Send e-mail
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Wake Forest University School of Medicine has received a $7.5 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) to open a research center to study dietary supplements. The school of medicine, part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, is one of five centers nationwide selected for funding.
Research conducted by the funded centers will explore the safety, effectiveness, and mechanisms of botanicals, which are plant-based dietary supplements.
The Wake Forest center is a partnership with Harvard Medical Center and will be known as the Wake Forest and Harvard Center for Botanical Lipids. The center will examine biological mechanisms and clinical applications of polyunsaturated fatty acids derived from plants such as flaxseed, echium, also known as blueweed, and borage, an herb.
The studies will focus on the anti-inflammatory actions of these oils and their potential to prevent and treat inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis and asthma. It is estimated that within the next two decades, more than one in three people in the United States will suffer from an inflammatory disease.
Floyd "Ski" Chilton, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, will be the center director, overseeing four major projects of the center as well as directing educational and community outreach in the area of complementary and alternative medicine. Three major projects will be carried out at Wake Forest and one at Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical Center.
At Wake Forest, one project will examine how flaxseed oil may protect against atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty deposits in blood vessels. A second project will explore the hypothesis that a rare oil found in nature known as echium reduces atherosclerosis by lowering triglycerides. Project 3 examines how borage, marine (fish) and echium oils reduce inflammatory messengers that cause diseases such as asthma and arthritis.
A fourth project, based at Brigham and Women's Hospital, is a clinical trial designed to determine whether borage/echium oils can be used to treat asthma.
"People are desperately searching for better, more natural ways to take control of their health," said Chilton. "By funding this center, NIH has provided us with an incredible opportunity to determine the therapeutic potential of fatty acids found in several natural oils to treat sufferers of many of the most common diseases that affect mankind."
According to the National Institutes of Health, of which NCCAM and ODS are part, botanical products are widely used by Americans despite a lack of evidence of whether they are safe or effective. The 2002 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that 38.2 million American adults (about 19 percent) use nonvitamin, nonmineral natural products, primarily botanical supplements.
"Given that millions of Americans are using natural products, these research centers are critical to helping us determine whether and by what mechanisms botanicals may serve as effective treatments or preventive approaches," said Stephen E. Straus, M.D., NCCAM director. "The five centers we are funding will investigate the use of a variety of widely consumed botanicals, from flaxseed to tarragon, for a range of diseases and conditions that affect many Americans, such as asthma, atherosclerosis, cataracts, and cancer."
Other projects receiving funding are the Botanical Center for Age-Related Diseases (Purdue University, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Rutgers University), the Botanical Dietary Supplements for Women's Health (University of Illinois at Chicago), Botanicals and Metabolic Syndrome (Louisiana State University System and the Center of Agriculture and the Environment of Rutgers University) and the MSKCC Research Center for Botanical Immunomodulators (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, The Rockefeller University, and the Institute of Chinese Medicine and the Chinese University, Hong Kong, China).
About Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center: Wake Forest Baptist is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university's School of Medicine. The system comprises 1,298 acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and is consistently ranked as one of "America's Best Hospitals" by U.S. News & World Report.
Contact: Ellen Silberman
Associate Director, Publicity
212-698-7076
Send e-mail
INFLAMMATION NATION
The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End Our Nation’s Secret Epidemic
By Dr. Floyd “Ski” Chilton with Laura Tucker
The consumption of many of the foods we’ve been led to believe are the “healthiest” (including farm raised salmon, eggs, turkey and chicken) may actually be making us sick. We eat too many of the foods that cause inflammation and not enough of the ones that offer protection. This imbalance has devastating consequences and has contributed to the epidemic rise in inflammatory diseases like allergies, arthritis, asthma, cardiovascular disease, Crohn’s, diabetes and many more.
Dr. Floyd “Ski” Chilton, one of the world’s leading experts in inflammatory disease, with Laura Tucker, has written INFLAMMATION NATION: The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End our Nation’s Secret Epidemic (Fireside, a Simon & Schuster imprint; January 4, 2005; $24.95; 0-7432-6964-0). Dr. Chilton’s Program is a simple solution designed to help stop, reverse and even prevent the dangerous effects of an immune system set permanently on overdrive. The Chilton Program has been backed by 6 clinical trials and promises results in as little as 7-10 days!
In INFLAMMATION NATION, Dr. Chilton draws the link between diet and inflammation and believes the standard American lifestyle has made this a crisis of epidemic proportion. Many inflammatory diseases can be controlled – and in some instances even reversed – by diet.
Some of the invaluable tools in the book are:
- An Inflammatory Index – for the first time, an inflammatory potential has been assigned to the most common foods eaten today
- A table that ranks fish from best to worst on the inflammatory danger scale
- Two 28-day diet plans (Prevention and Solution) - one to treat and reverse inflammatory diseases and one to help prevent inflammation problems, and if followed properly, can be used for weight-loss, as well
- A quiz to determine your “Inflammatory Quotient” - your inflammatory risk profile, which determines how to proceed through the Chilton Program
- Delicious recipes that correspond with menu items in the diet plans.
Dr. Floyd “Ski” Chilton has served on the faculty of internationally recognized medical centers, including Johns Hopkins and Wake Forest University Schools of Medicine. He is a full professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The author of more than 110 articles and textbook chapters, Chilton holds thirty-two issued and seventeen pending patents. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and has four children.
INFLAMMATION NATION: The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End Our Nation’s Secret Epidemic
by Floyd H. “Ski” Chilton, Ph.D. with Laura Tucker
Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: January 4, 2005/Price: $24.95/ISBN: 0-7432-6964-0
Reprinted from INFLAMMATION NATION:
The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End Our Nation’s Secret Epidemic
By Dr. “Ski” Chilton with Laura Tucker
Fish will assume a starring role in your diet when you do the Chilton Program, but as you now know, not all fish are alike. Different fish have different ratios of beneficial and harmful fatty acids.
Category 1 Fish: Best Fish (These are your best choices: eat them as often as possible)
Anchovies, European
Herring, Atlantic/Pacific
Mackerel, Atlantic/Pacific
Chinook salmon, wild
Roe, mixed species
Caviar, black and red
Sockeye salmon, wild
Category 2 Fish: Good Fish (These are your good choices: eat them often)
Pink Salmon, wild
Halibut, Greenland
Coho salmon, wild
Alaskan king crab
Blue crab
Chum salmon, wild
Smelt
Shrimp
Oysters, wild
Oysters, farmed
Mussels
Shark, mixed species
Sea bass, mixed species
White tuna, canned
Squid, mixed species
Category 3 Fish: Neutral (There’s no reason to avoid these fish)
Scallops
Clams
Flounder
Rainbow trout, wild
Yellowfin tuna
Trout, mixed species
Swordfish
Walleye
Sardines, Pacific
Salmon, Atlantic (wild)
Tilefish
Haddock
Cod, Pacific
Cod, Atlantic
Octopus
Perch, mixed species
Snapper, mixed species
Mahimahi
Category 4 Fish: Bad Fish (These are the bad choices, avoid them if possible)
Grouper
Halibut, Atlantic/Pacific
Pompano, Florida
Channel catfish, farmed and wild
Salmon, Atlantic (farmed)
For more information on INFLAMMATION NATION
or to schedule an interview with Dr. “Ski” Chilton,
please contact Ellen Silberman at 212-698-7076 or e-mail us
