Research capabilities
Research Overview
Research is embedded in our mission statement and the clinical research capability of BASE provides it with a sustaining competitive advantage. Academics conduct research across a wide range of areas that will educate the community with emphasis on the prevention of disease and maintenance of optimum health. Our research themes incorporate basic nutrition research, its translation into practice settings and information transfer by continued education of health professionals.
Does your company want a competitive edge?
In today’s competitive market there are countless new products being launched every month, but relatively few survive to give a return on the initial investment. As an added pressure, food businesses have three years from January 2013 to comply with the Food Standards Code (1.2.7 and Transitional Standard 1.1A.2) on nutrition content claims and health claims on food labels and in advertisements. Whilst some of this can be carried out in-house, the majority of consumers trust results from independent research more than research conducted by food businesses in-house.
How will working with BASE benefit my company?
The state-of-the-art Be Active Sleep Eat (BASE) research facility at the world renowned Monash University can help food businesses in the following areas:
- Feasibility studies
- New product development
- Proof of concept
- Proof of efficacy
- Identify health claims
- Design and conduct human intervention trials following Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines
- Member of the Victorian Platform Technologies Network (VPTN)
Through a multidisciplinary approach to optimise health and wellbeing, the team of accredited academics and professionals are pioneering the integration of nutrition, sleep, exercise physiology and physical therapy from research into practice.
Our Facilities and Services
The BASE facility has been designed to provide an environment conducive for community volunteers to take part in high quality research which contribute to advancing the science of nutrition, sleep and physical activity. The facility comprises of a sleep laboratory, a commercial kitchen, exercise and fitness studio and consulting suites. We have a range of state-of-the-art equipment and a team of accredited academics and health professionals ready to conduct research and product development, to GCP standards, tailored to suit your needs.
For further information on any of our facilities and services listed below please email base.nutrition@monash.edu
Commercial Kitchen
A fully equipped and self-contained commercial kitchen built to industry specifications is ideally situated for food related research. The kitchen is available for catering and function preparation, food demonstrations, classes, product launches, nutritional/ dietary analysis and more.
Health Claims Testing
We can design and conduct human intervention trials that will test the efficacy of your product in order to provide independent support for your health claim. Our studies comply with GCP guidelines. We have a range of services that test the metabolic effect of foods/ingredients including: glycaemic response; glycaemic index; diet induced thermogenesis.
Sleep Laboratory
It may seem obvious that we need the right amount of sleep to feel good, but sometimes it isn’t always easy to do. If you don’t get enough sleep it can affect your moods, as well as your ability to learn and make decisions. Insufficient sleep also changes how our bodies process the food we eat and even changes the types of food we desire. The BASE state-of-the-art sleep laboratory is ideal for controlled overnight sleep studies. We can help to identify the underlying cause of sleep disturbance and help you get the sleep you need.
Exercise and Fitness Suite
By understanding how the human body responds to sport or occupational physical activity or products that may enhance the effects of training programs that may result in improvements in fitness and/or hydration. Our heat acclimation chamber can be used to test the wearability of protective clothing under heat stress for industry and various occupations.
Body Composition Suite
Do you need to know how your product affects body composition e.g. “Do volunteers lose weight and how much of that is body fat loss?” or “How much muscle do volunteers gain after consuming our product/exercise trial?” At BASE we can assess body composition using simple tools (weight and height to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI)) or using more sophisticated methods such as bioelectrical impedance, isotope dilution right through to measuring bone strength, fracture risk, muscle and fat mass using the state-of-the-art iDXA.