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Mark J. Messina, Ph.D.

Nutrition Matters, Inc.
Port Townsend, Washington

Mark Messina received a masters degree in nutrition from the University of Michigan in 1982, and a Ph.D. in nutrition from Michigan State University in 1987. His doctorate research involved the effects of cruciferous vegetables on colon cancer. From 1987 to 1992, Dr. Messina was employed as a program director in the Diet and Cancer Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. His primary responsibility was to identify research needs in the area of diet and cancer prevention and to make recommendations for government funding of research projects. In 1990, Dr. Messina organized a workshop on the role of soy in cancer prevention. As a result of this effort, the National Cancer Institute allocated three million dollars towards research on soybeans. From 1991-1992, Dr. Messina was also head of the National Cancer Institute's Designer Foods Program. This program focused on developing foods high in anticarcinogenic phytochemicals for use in research.

Since leaving the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Messina has devoted much of his time to the study of the health benefits of soyfoods. He writes extensively on this subject, and has given more than 200 presentations to both consumer and professional groups. He co-edits and writes a regular column for The Soy Connection, a quarterly newsletter sent to the 70,000 members of the American Dietetic Association. Dr. Messina organized and chaired the first (February, 1994, Mesa, Arizona) and second (September, 1996, Brussels, Belgium) international symposiums on the role of soy in preventing and treating chronic disease.

He is the co-author, along with his wife, Virginia Messina, MPH, RD, and Kenneth Setchell, Ph.D, of The Simple Soybean and Your Health (Avery Publishing Group, 1994). He is also the co-author, along with his wife, of two books on plant-based diets, one aimed at the consumer (The Vegetarian Way, Crown Publishers, 1996) and the other for health professionals (The Dietitian's Guide to Vegetarian Diets: Issues and Applications, Aspen Publishers, 1996). Dr. Messina is the editor of a peer-reviewed journal on vegetarian nutrition entitled Vegetarian Nutrition: An International Journal.

[Soy as a Possible Alternative to Hormone Replacement Therapy]
[Soyfoods Symposium 1997 Home Page]