8 days until alpe d'huzes

Eight days to go until the Alpe D'Huzes fund raiser. On June 3 almost 3000 cyclist will climb Alpe D'Huez mountain for one or more times. A substantial number of those 3000 will go for six climbs on that one day. This effort is undertaken by these cycling crazies in order to raise as much money as possible for research aiming to inform and improve 'living with cancer'.

The Alpe D'Huzes foundation organises this event. Alpe D'Huzes means something like 'Alpe Six Times' in Dutch. In 2006 the event was organised for the first time on the 6th of June, when the founding fathers of Alpe D'Huzes, Peter Kapitein and Coen van Veenendaal cycled the Alpe six times with a small group of other people dedicated to do some cycling for a great cause. The money raised from 2006 on goes to the Netherlands Cancer Society, to a specific fund for research that fits the Alpe D'Huzes. The money raised so far goes, among other things, to the Alpe D'Huzes Cancer Rehabilitation Project (A-CaRe), to the endowed chair in 'Living with Cancer' , i.e. Professor Irma Verdonck, at the department of Clinical Psychology, and very soon to an endowed chair in nutrition and cancer at the department of Health Sciences at the VU University and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University/VU University Medical Center.

As the director of the EMGO Institute, I participated in the event last year, indeed completing the six climbs; click here for a video impression of my experiences in 2009.

This year the VU University Medical Center participates with 3 teams in the event. Led by our dean, professor Wim Stalman, the VU University Medical Center has formed three teams of cancer researchers. One of the teams is the so-called 'Pro(f)' team, consisting of professors; I am one of their riders, please see my personal participant page. Another is the 'talent team' consisting of PhD students.
Yester day the Pro and Talent teams had a joined training ride, right through the center of the Netherlands, from Overveen in the west, to Papendal, near Arnhem in the east. Coffee and cake were served in Rhenen, in our dean’s back yard, where some team photos were made. Please click here for a short video impression and here for some photos.

The training session showed that we are ready for the event next week.

Rosemarie Dröes inaugurated as Professor of Psychosocial care for people with dementia

Last Friday, Rosemarie Dröes held her inaugural address to accept her chair in Psychosocial care for people with dementia. Professor Dröes’ chair is at the department of Nursing home Medicine of the VU University medical center. She is the head of the research program on care and support in dementia’ of the department of Psychiatry of the VU University medical center and the Regional Institute for Mental Health Services GGZ-inGeest in Amsterdam. Her research is embedded in the Quality of Care program of the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research. Professor Dröes’ presentation clearly illustrated her past performance and future ambitions in conducting excellent research in order to develop, implement and disseminate improved dementia care practice.

A seminar by colleagues from the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrtion Research (C-Pan), Deakin University

On Friday May 21 Prof. Jo Salmon and Dr. Lukar Thornton give a seminar at the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research. Prof. Salmon will spend her sabbatical at the institute, and Dr. Thornton was over for just a few days. EMGO+ has a successful ongoing collaboration with C-PAN. We collaborate on different The director of C-PAN, Prof. David Crawford is a visiting professor at EMGO+.
Prof. Salmon’s presentation is on ‘Standing up for children's health: reducing children's sedentary time at school and home’, while Lukar Thornton will speak about ‘Current approaches to measurements of food environments and some approaches for the future’.

A course on mediation analysis within the ENERGY project

In behaviour nutrition and physical activity research the focus is more and more on indentifying the interplay between different behavioral determinants, i.e. on indentifying the causal pathways from more distal to more proximal determinants to health behaviors and health outcomes. In health behaviour change intervention research, the focus is more and more on why, i.e. through what causal pathways interventions work or not.

To answer such research questions, mediation analysis is key. Within the “EuropeaN Energy balance Research to prevent excessive weight Gain among Youth” (ENERGY)-project, such analyses are a main focus to indeed identify the mediating pathways of determinants of energy balance-related eating and physical activity behaviors, and the mediating path ways through which energy-balance interventions have their effects. Today, Drs. Maartje van Stralen and Saskia te Velde and Mine Yildrim, MSc led a workshop to introduce the ENERGY researchers in mediation analyses. The introductory course was attended by colleagues from the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Australia.

EGEA conference: A conference on promotion of fruits and vegetables

From Wednesday to this Friday a conference was held in Brussels on the role of fruits and vegetables in pursuing the social and health benefits of a balanced diet. This is the 6th so-called EGEA conference on this topic, supported by the European Commission. I had the honour and pleasure to give the opening key note on the role of socio-economic determinants in promoting fruits and vegetables. I especially used results of the Pro Children, Schoolgruiten, and Pro Greens studies to illustrate the socio-economic disparities and the potential to address these with school-based fruit and vegetable promotion programs.

During the rest of the conference evidence was presented on the associations of fruit and vegetable intakes with morbidity and mortality, on different health promotion schemes to encourage fruits and vegetables, on physical, social and economical influences on fruit and vegetable intakes, and on European Commission research an policy projects on fruit and vegetable promotion.

More than 100 university professors plead in favour of sustainable agriculture in the Netherlands

In 2001 a Dutch governmental advisory committee led by Herman Wijffels, recommended to initiate and implement drastic changes in Dutch agriculture and livestock raising. Their report was a strong advise to move to a more sustainable system, also taking animal welfare much more into account. A movement towards a true sustainable system, with a stronger focus on quality instead of further growth in production was recommended. The minister at the time, Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, accepted announced he would take the advice at heart, calling the advise and recommended changes “clear, hard, and inevitable”. Brinkhorst stated that the Netherlands would take an international lead in developing a more animal friendly and societal acceptable farming system, and many of the changes were supposed to be implemented or at least ongoing in 2010.

Now it is 2010, governments and ministers of agriculture have changed, we have had, amongst others, the threat of a H1N1 flu epidemic, we have a Q-fever epidemic in part of the Netherlands, recently very alarming findings have been communicated regarding antibiotic resistant bacteria among people exposed to antibiotic overloaded live stock.

And agriculture and farming have not made the changes recommended in 2001 and embraced by the minister at the time.

A group of more than 100 university professors from a variety of disciplines now ask for action. In a letter in the national news paper NRC Handelsblad of April 28 the plead for a true change towards sustainable agriculture, raising of livestock and farming methods for reasons of (1) environmental protection, climate change prevention, and food security; and (2) public health.

The full letter with argumentation is published on line which included the list of 'authors', and the NRC article, which is a shorter version, can be accessed via the NRC website.

Dr. Irma Verdonck accepts her chair in Cancer Research with a specific focus on ‘living with cancer’

Yesterday Dr. Irma Verdonck gave her inaugural address on ‘Living with Cancer’ to accept her endowed chair on behalf of the Alpe D’Huzes foundation, a charity that organizes cycling events to raise money for cancer research, especially to improve long-term perspectives for cancer patients.
Dr. Verdonck presented her plans to build a large cohort study of cancer patients to get better insights in the associations between living with cancer and mental health, as well as to build and research an e-health system to better promote psychosocial health among cancer survivors. Her chair is embedded in the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, and she will work closely, in a joint research program, with the CCA-V/Ici cancer research institute of the VU University Medical Center.