Noted researcher examines nutrition and lifestyle as medicine.
A teenage Andrew Koutnik was excited about his first trip to Washington, D.C., until he landed in a hospital intensive care unit for three days. That was when he learned that Type 1 diabetes would forever alter his life and started him on his career as a noted researcher, author and speaker.
Koutnik, 29, a native of Tallahassee, has been involved in work such as NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operation, has authored numerous articles in medical journals and other publications, maintains an active blog and has been a TEDx speaker. He was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to join the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and is completing the PhD program this summer.
With the birth of a son in May, Koutnik now has, given hereditary statistics, even more impetus to continue his studies into Type 1 diabetes.
“I’m at the end of my PhD, and I have been a father for eight weeks, so I’ve been trying to write my dissertation. My wife is also in a PhD program. It has been a crazy, crazy, crazy journey. I always admired people who had success in their career, but more importantly, they had the respect and admiration of their peers, families and co-workers. I’ve always wanted to be a father. It’s really cool. It’s exciting. Unfortunately, there is increased risk for my child getting Type 1 diabetes,” he explains.
“For 12 years I have been navigating Type 1 diabetes and that has taught me that what we consume, what we do every day, including lifestyle habits, like exercise and sleep, among other things, have tremendous impact on not only our metabolism but our overall well-being.”
Koutnik says that about 11 years ago he discovered that a low carbohydrate diet helped normalize his outcomes based on risk metrics.
“I have spent a great deal of time in research studying how nutrition can play a role in not only my own disease, but in the prevention and management of a number of other diseases, such as cancer,” he says. “Chronically Type 1 diabetics are at increased risk for all 10 of the leading causes of death and expected to live a decade shorter. Nutrition and lifestyle has a huge impact on health, disease and performance. It’s important to optimize those outcomes and that’s why I do what I do and what I will be talking about in Ocala.”
Koutnik will speak Sept. 12th at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Ocala on “Low Carb Diet and Type 1 Diabetes: A Patient and Research Perspective.”
Learn More: › IHMC Evening Lecture Series. › Andrew Koutnik. › Thursday, September 12, 6-7pm (doors open at 5:30). › www.ihmc.us › (352) 387-3050
