LIKE MANY PEOPLE, Wendy Demark-

Wahnefried, Ph.D., R.D., had a mental image

of Birmingham, Alabama—and it wasn’t

pretty. “Growing up in Detroit, I was part of

the generation who watched the newscasts

about civil rights, and I envisioned Alabama

as an ugly place to live,” she says.

Flying into Birmingham for her interview

at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center

opened Dr. Demark-Wahnefried’s eyes to

Alabama’s beauty. “It surprised me when I

looked out of the plane and saw how pretty

this place is,” she recalls. “It reminds me

of my time at Duke. Alabama is a beau-

tiful place to live.”

Dr. Demark-Wahnefried was

recruited to the Cancer Center in

2010 from M.D. Anderson Cancer

Center in Houston. At UAB, she is

the Cancer Center’s associate direc-

tor for cancer prevention and con-

trol and the holder of the Webb

Chair in Nutrition Sciences. Her research

primarily focuses on determining the mecha-

nisms of action of food-related components on

disease progression, specifically on breast and

prostate cancers; nutrition-related concerns of

cancer patients; and effective lifestyle interven-

tions to improve the overall health of cancer

survivors and their families.

EMERgINg REsEARCh Dr. Demark-Wahnefried’s interest in this

type of research came about in an unusual

way. “I was doing my first study [as a cancer

control specialist] at Duke University, and my

boss was investigating why women with breast

cancer gained weight while on chemotherapy,”

she says. “She said to me, ‘You’re a nutritionist.

You should be able to figure this out.’”

Though her background was in cardiovas-

cular research (“I knew zip about cancer,” she

recalls), Dr. Demark-Wahnefried accepted the

challenge. She designed an intensive metabolic

study following 17 women to measure their

dietary intake, their weight over time, their

metabolic rate and their level of physical activ-

ity. “We found that these women didn’t eat

any more than before they were diagnosed, but

that their physical activity level and metabolic

rate started to drop during treatment. That’s

what led to the weight gain,” she says.

Using that data, Dr. Demark-Wahnefried

received a grant from the National Cancer

Institute to expand the study to include both

women receiving chemotherapy and women

receiving radiation therapy. The results were

surprising: While the women reduced their

physical activity, their muscle mass also

shrank. “Those body composition changes

were comparable to 10 years of normal aging,”

she says. “It was an incredible finding.”

She and her colleagues soon began expand-

ing their studies even further, adding exercise

programs and improved diets containing more

fruits and vegetables to the protocols. They

B Y J O S H T I L L

WENDY DEMARK-WAHNEFRIED

u A b C o m P r e H e N S I V e C A N C e r C e N T e r 15

UAB COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER MAGAZINE SALUTES WENDY DEMARK-WAHNEFRIED, PH.D., R.D., ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR CANCER

PREVENTION AND CONTROL AT THE UAB COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER AND PROFESSOR OF NUTRITION SCIENCES. DR. DEMARK-

WAHNEFRIED’S TRAINING IS IN BIOCHEMISTRY, GENETICS AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, AND HER RESEARCH CAREER HAS SPANNED FROM

BASIC SCIENCE STUDIES TO CLINICAL RESEARCH TO SOME OF THE LARGEST STUDIES EXPLORING METABOLIC AND BODY COMPOSITION

CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO CANCER TREATMENT. DR. DEMARK-WAHNEFRIED EARNED HER BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN NUTRITIONAL SCIENCE

AND CHEMISTRY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. SHE COMPLETED HER GRADUATE WORK AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE-TEXAS

WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY IN HOUSTON AND AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY. A RECIPIENT OF NUMEROUS AWARDS AND HONORS, DR. DEMARK-

WAHNEFRIED WAS NAMED PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PREVENTIVE ONCOLOGY IN JULY 2011.

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