News Feed

Color-coded world map indicating rates of obesity by country

More Than One Billion People Around the Globe are Facing Obesity

Obesity is now the most common form of malnutrition in most countries, with the rates rising in all categories of men, women, children and adolescents since 1990. Obesity rates in adult men have nearly tripled since 1990, with obesity rates in woman doubling in that time. The rates of obesity in children and adolescents quadrupled in that time frame, as well. As of 2022, nearly 880 million adults and nearly 160 million children were living with obesity.

Learn More
Grade Study

Comparative Study of Type 2 Diabetes Medications Shows Differences in Medication Acceptance, Quality-Of-Life, Insulin Secretion and Mortality

Diabetes affects more than 1 in 10 — or more than 38 million — Americans. People with diabetes who keep their blood sugar levels in the near-normal range generally have a much lower risk of developing diabetes complications such as heart, kidney, and eye diseases. The challenge is that most people with diabetes require more than one medication to control blood sugar levels over time.

Learn More
Dr. Justin Brown

A Father's Legacy: Dr. Justin Brown's Cancer Research

What do you do when one of the world's deadliest diseases hits your home? You use it as fuel. Meet Dr. Justin Brown, Director of Pennington Biomedical's Cancer Metabolism Program, and hear the inspirational story behind his passion. Every 18 seconds someone is diagnosed with cancer in the United States and every 52 seconds someone succumbs to this devastating disease. Individuals living with cancer and those at risk for developing cancer deserve to know how purposeful changes to their lifestyle can alter their clinical course. Over the past 35 years, Pennington Biomedical has attracted researchers from around the world to its Baton Rouge campus with the purpose of helping people live longer, healthier lives. These internationally renowned scientists collaborate with their colleagues in 240 academic institutions in 24 countries. Their work has generated close to 400,000 citations in scientific literature with five scientists ranking among the most cited researchers in the world

Learn More
Small Shifts

Health Across the Lifespan Begins with Small Shifts

At Pennington Biomedical, our passion is straightforward: prevent disease, treat disease, end disease. Through innovative research, and with the involvement of the Baton Rouge community, we are applying cutting edge technologies to improve human health. But in addressing nutrition, obesity and diabetes, many approaches do not employ state-of-the-art lab equipment. Addressing them requires small shifts.

Learn More
Dr. Justin Brown

National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month: A Father’s Legacy Leads to a Research Passion for Dr. Justin Brown

Growing up, Dr. Justin Brown thought his career path would bring him to be a union carpenter in New York City, but when he was 14 years old, his father passed away following a battle with colon cancer. From then on, Dr. Brown’s future career became instantly clear. “My mission is motivated by the need to prevent children from having to watch their parents melt away from cancer,” Dr. Brown said.

Learn More
ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub

Pennington Biomedical Research Center Named a Spoke in the ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub

Shortly after being selected as a spoke in the ARPA-H Customer Experience Hub, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center has also been named a spoke in the ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub.

Learn More
Downtown Baton Rouge

A Scientific Center Becomes an Economic Engine

Entrepreneurial scientists at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center win national grants and corporate contracts that fund hundreds of biomed jobs at the Center in Baton Rouge each year. Over the past 35 years, Pennington Biomedical has attracted researchers from around the world to its Baton Rouge campus with the purpose of helping people live longer, healthier lives. These internationally renowned scientists collaborate with their colleagues in 240 academic institutions in 24 countries. Their work has generated close to 400,000 citations in scientific literature with five scientists ranking among the most cited researchers in the world

Learn More
African American Woman Completing Workout

Pennington Biomedical to Host the 3rd Annual Senior Black American Health Fair on Saturday, March 30

Open to residents in the Greater Baton Rouge region and beyond, the health fair will take place on Saturday, March 30, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the C.B. Pennington Conference Center Building, located at 6400 Perkins Road in Baton Rouge.

Learn More
Runner

If You Can Only Work Out on the Weekends, Here’s How Long You Need to Exercise

New research suggests that people who cram their sweat sessions into a weekend have body fat levels that resemble those who hit the gym throughout the week, as long as they're hitting at least 150 minutes of exercise total.

Learn More
Neuroscience Symposium: Bringing Minds Together

Inaugural Neuroscience Symposium: Bringing Minds Together

The Baton Rouge Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience Baton Rouge Chapter (SfN BTR) presents the inaugural “Neuroscience Symposium: Bringing Minds Together.” The event will take place Friday, March 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. at Pennington Biomedical Research Conference Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Learn More
Child on scale with uncoiled tape measure beside it

Remote Height and Weight Measurements for Children Proven as Accurate as In-Person

The increased popularity of telehealth and telemedicine in recent years has provided a new level of accessibility for patients to visit doctors and learn more about their health. Certain remote measurements, however, have long been speculated to be less accurate and less trustworthy than when gathered at in-person appointments.

Learn More
PBRC Lab

February 2024 Publications

The following are recent publications by the researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Learn More
ARMMS-T2D

Bariatric Surgery Provides Long-Term Blood Glucose Control, Type 2 Diabetes Remission

People with type 2 diabetes who underwent bariatric surgery achieved much better long-term blood glucose control compared to people who received medical management plus lifestyle interventions, according to a new study published in JAMA, or Journal of the American Medical Association, and funded by the National institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of The National Institutes of Health.

Learn More
Kirwan Lab

Pennington Biomedical Researchers Looking for New Ways to Improve Life Span and Health During Aging

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is discovering new ways to improve life span and health during aging through its research. A new study from Pennington Biomedical, “Restricting bioenergetic efficiency enhances longevity and mitochondrial redox capacity in Drosophila melanogaster,” published in the journal Aging Cell, showed that BAM15, a compound that makes mitochondria less efficient at producing energy, extended life span in fruit flies, and was associated with less body fat and increased muscle function.

Learn More
Launchpad Innovation Pilot Awards

New Screening Tool Saving Lives: Metamor Team Developing Tool to Catch Cancer Earlier

A new partnership between a Pennington Biomedical physician-researcher at the Metamor Institute and an LSU School of Medicine oncologist has already saved several women’s lives in southeast Louisiana.

Learn More
The Obesity Society

Whether You Exercise Regularly or One-To-Two Days a Week, Weight Loss is Possible

Whether you engage in physical activity on a regular basis or one-to-two days a week, both options produce weight loss suggests a new study published in the journal Obesity, The Obesity Society’s (TOS) flagship journal. The study is the first of its kind to examine the association between physical activity patterns and objectively-measured fat tissue mass.

Learn More
DXA scanning device

Researchers Combine Modern Equipment for Increased Precision in Body Composition Analysis

Locating specific, localized distributions of fat and muscle in body composition is intuitively and imprecisely implied by body shape. Now, a team of researchers has discovered that the unique combination of modern deep learning models, specified equipment and three-dimensional body scans has given a quantitative validation on medical imaging that was previously only qualitative.

Learn More
Customer Experience Hub

Pennington Biomedical Research Center Named a Spoke in the ARPA-H Customer Experience Hub

ARPA-H Customer Experience Hub, nationwide health innovation network, enable access, health innovations

Learn More
Women's Wellness

Irene W. Pennington Wellness Day for Women Returns March 2

The annual Irene W. Pennington Wellness Day for Women returns to Pennington Biomedical for the 24th year, delivering a menu of screenings, services and other activities to participants from across the Capital region. The event will be held on Saturday, March 2, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the C.B. Pennington Jr. Conference Center at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, located at 6400 Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. Registration is now open and limited to 600 participants.

Learn More
Dr. Jeffery Keller and Answer ALS

Pennington Biomedical's Dr. Jeffery Keller to Lead Answer ALS' Open Access Data Repository

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Jeffery Keller has been named Principal Investigator to oversee Answer ALS’ open access data repository, Neuromine. Serving as Director for Pennington Biomedical’s Institute for Dementia Research and Prevention and a Professor of Aging and Neurodegeneration, Dr. Keller will help lead the growth of access to Answer ALS data repository, the largest and most comprehensive ALS data resource in history.

Learn More