Whole food approaches to enhance exercise recovery, muscle strength and functional performance in older adults.

The World Health Organisation advises that adults aged 65+ should undertake at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week including muscle-strengthening activities. Appropriate post-exercise nutrition is required to maximise the benefits of exercise training. Realistic, cost effective whole food recovery strategies for older adults are needed to maximise the benefits of exercise in a population at risk of muscle mass and strength loss (sarcopenia) and other age-related conditions. The projects aims to conduct randomised controlled human intervention trials to assess the efficacy of consuming milk-based products after exercise on physical and immune function, body composition and quality of life in older adults.

Training: The student will receive extensive training in the design and implementation of human intervention studies involving dietary and exercise interventions. The student will be involved in protocol development, ethical approval, participant recruitment, GCP, data collection and analysis and presentation of the data in oral and written form. The student will receive specialist training in exercise prescription and will be expected to gain the ACSM clinical exercise physiologist qualification. They will also be trained in dietary analysis, body composition measurements and assessment of muscle mass and function. More generic skills will be achieved through the Newcastle University Graduate School Training Programme.