ESU professor participates in dietary supplement research practicum
ESU Media Relations
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Dietary supplements — the substances that can supply additional vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to a person’s diet — require users to exercise their brains as well as their muscles. So says Paul Luebbers, Ph.D., assistant professor of health, physical education and recreation at Emporia State University .
“I want my students to be critical thinkers when it comes to dietary supplements,” said Luebbers. “What works for one person might not be right for another.”
Luebbers recently joined more than 100 other professors and graduate students from throughout the U.S. and Canada to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) course, “Dietary Supplement Research Practicum 2008.” The practicum was on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., June 9-13.
ODS offers the practicum as an intensive course to provide essential knowledge of dietary supplements to academic faculty and students with a serious interest in the subject. Experts from NIH, academic institutions, and federal regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration served as speakers.
At ESU, Luebbers teaches a class on ergogenic issues in the HPER curriculum, focusing on nutrition and dietary supplements and their potential to be used as ergogenic aids. “An ergogenic is anything that can be used to enhance a person’s capacity to do work,” Luebbers explained. “Dietary supplements like creatine, whey protein, and even certain vitamins and minerals can fall in that category, because they may help people exercise better or get better results from their exercise.”
Luebbers earned his doctorate in exercise physiology from Virginia Commonwealth University after attaining master’s and bachelor’s degrees from ESU. His research interests encompass the areas of exercise, resistance training, nutrition and metabolism. At ESU, he teaches a variety of classes in physiology, health and fitness.