Healthy Aging Through Nutrition

Pol Grootswagers has established himself as a leading researcher in nutrition and aging at Wageningen University & Research, where he serves as Assistant Professor focusing on nutritional strategies to maintain muscle health during aging. His doctoral research, completed in 2020, made significant contributions to understanding how nutrition can improve muscle quality in older adults. His thesis demonstrated that intensive exercise combined with proper nutrition could increase muscle mass by 5% and strength by 13% in just four weeks

Marco Mensink has established himself as a distinguished researcher in nutrition and exercise physiology at Wageningen University's Division of Human Nutrition and Health. His academic journey began at Maastricht University, where he earned his MSc in Health Sciences specializing in movement sciences (1995) and his medical degree (1998), followed by a Ph.D. in 2003 focusing on lifestyle interventions for type 2 diabetes prevention

Lisette de Groot has established herself as a leading authority in nutrition and aging research at Wageningen University, where she serves as Professor of Nutrition and Ageing in the Division of Human Nutrition. With over three decades of research experience following her MSc and PhD in Nutrition, physiology and epidemiology from Wageningen University, she has made significant contributions to understanding the relationship between nutrition and healthy aging. Her research portfolio includes major epidemiological studies such as SENECA (Survey in Europe on Nutrition and the Elderly), EURRECA (European micronutrient recommendations aligned), HALE, NuAge, and Chances, alongside numerous physiological intervention studies. As one of the founders of the Research line on Nutrition and aging at WUR, she focuses on identifying dietary strategies to optimize nutritional status and slow down or reverse age-related pathologies, including cognitive decline, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis. Her current research extends beyond elderly nutrition to examine aging as a lifelong process, incorporating molecular epidemiology, genetics, cell biology, and nutrigenomics in human interventions. Her work has significantly influenced understanding of how dietary interventions can maintain health in old age, with particular emphasis on nutritional approaches to slow down aging-related functional decline

Yannick Vermeiren serves as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Cognitive Brain Aging at Wageningen University's Division of Human Nutrition and Health, where he leads groundbreaking research on preventative measures against Alzheimer's disease. His academic journey began as a biomedical scientist specializing in neurosciences at the University of Antwerp, culminating in a Ph.D. in 2015 focusing on the neurochemistry of behavioral disturbances in dementia, work that earned him the prestigious Santkin prize for Alzheimer research from the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine in 2016. His current research encompasses three main areas: nutritional interventions on cognitive functioning with aging, gut-brain axis research in cognitive aging, and identification of nutritional biomarkers for cognitive decline

Inge Groenendijk serves as a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University, specializing in nutritional interventions for bone health in aging populations. Her 2023 doctoral thesis established fundamental insights into nutritional factors supporting bone health in older adults, with particular emphasis on protein intake and its effects on bone mineral density.