Buffalo State

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Tina Colaizzo-Anas is a registered dietitian who earned her Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo. During her doctoral studies, she worked at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Prior to that, she assessed the nutritional needs of patients in the Intensive Care Unit and recommended disease-specific nutrition to support the medical plan.

Many of her patients' diseases were associated with obesity. Since coming to Buffalo State in 1997 as an assistant professor, her research interests have come to include obesity and weight management. Colaizzo-Anas is presently supervising a long-term study investigating the difference between how many calories overweight women estimate they need to consume to lose weight and how many calories they actually need to consume to lose weight. The latter is determined by using a calorimeter, a device that measures a person’s actual resting calorie expenditure.

In addition to her research and teaching, Colaizzo-Anas supervises Buffalo State students at Buffalo General Hospital and helps them complete the clinical practice required to become dietitians.

In this three minute podcast, Colaizzo-Anas discusses the new technologies the Dietetics and Nutrition Department is using to help overweight and obese women meet their weight loss targets.

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Podcast transcript:

Announcer over music: Buffalo State College is committed to teaching learning, and research that impacts our community. Today, we’re talking with Dr. Tina Colaizzo-Anas, Professor in the Dietetics and Nutrition Department at Buffalo State College.

Announcer: Dr. Colaizzo-Anas, tell us about some of the projects that you and the department are involved with.

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: We looked at how many calories overweight and obese women burn on a daily basis. We compared that to prediction formulas. The thing that was unique about this study was that we were using new technology that is practical for dietitians to use in their practice rather than in a research setting.

Announcer: How does this technology help your research?

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: Once we know how many calories women burn then we can estimate how many calories they need to restrict their intake in order to have increased precision with weight loss targets.

Announcer: What are some of the findings of your research so far?

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: The number of calories that we estimate individuals need to consume in order to lose a pound a week is about a hundred and fifty calories more than what they think. Women that participated in the study believed that they needed to limit their intake more than they have to and that may be a disincentive to following a weight loss program.

Announcer: Why did you choose to work on this particular type of research?

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: If you use technology that measures individual calories burned then you have something that’s a little bit more objective on which to base your targets and that’s why I was interested in this. We know that we can predict about sixty-five percent of the time how many calories a person burns, but what about the other thirty-five percent? A lot of times the other thirty-five percent has to do with genetics that you can’t change but it can be captured when you measure individual calories burned.

Announcer: What resources do people have if they want to get more information?

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: www.mypyramid.gov is a wonderful site where you put in your height, your age, your gender, and it gives individual recommendations that are reasonable.

Announcer: Do you think people in Western New York are more susceptible to nutritional problems than in other parts of the country, mainly because of our unique local foods like chicken wings and such?

Tina Colaizzo-Anas: Well it’s an interesting question because Western New York does have one of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the country. It’s a subject of a lot of research as to why. One reason may be our dietary indiscretions. Also contributing would be our sedentary lifestyle.

Announcer over music: That was Dr. Tina Colaizzo-Anas, Professor in the Dietetics and Nutrition Department at Buffalo State College. Buffalo State is committed to improving the quality of life in the Buffalo Niagara Region. To find out more, contact Marian Deutschman, Interim Director of the Buffalo State College and Community Partnerships Office at 878-4132 or visit the college Web site at www.buffalostate.edu/partnerships.