Lia Artis ‘22: Food can be good medicine

Lia Artis ‘22 was destined for N.C. A&T at a young age.

“My family is very heavy with A&T,” said Artis, a summa cum laude graduate. “I’m a legacy with the university – we used to go to homecoming when I was younger and would always see myself coming here. When I went to high school, I knew that I wanted to go to an HBCU, and A&T was all I knew. A&T felt like a place where you can do anything that you want to do.”

Artis graduated with a major in Food and Nutritional Sciences with a concentration in human sciences and a concentration in pre-medicine. This fall, she will head to Providence, RI on a full scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in public health at Brown University.

Upon arriving at N.C. A&T in 2018, the Richmond, Va. native joined the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences intent on studying osteopathic medicine.

“As a freshman, I wanted to be a doctor of osteopathic medicine, then a holistic doctor,” said Artis. “Then, my mindset sort of changed and I wanted to be a medical doctor.”

It took some self-reflection and deliberation before Artis finally found the connection between the holistic and traditional medical practices: food and nutritional sciences, her eventual major.

“Food is one of the first forms of medicine,” said Artis. “It prevents illness innately, so I wanted a background in nutrition so I could help people be healthy in sustainable, natural ways.”

In Fall 2021, Artis joined the research lab of Hye Won Kang, Ph.D., associate professor of food and nutritional sciences, as a member of the Undergraduate Research Scholars program. Artis found that the program was a rewarding opportunity not offered at other universities.

“I had done a research-based internship at another school over the summer,” said Artis. “I learned there that a lot of Black Americans aren’t exposed to academia and research; it’s kind of an out-of-reach concept to us sometimes. I feel like having this program here, and having mentors to take you through the research experience, makes it seem reachable.”

Kang, who Artis chose as her advisor, called the scholar a “smart and diligent student who has a strong motivation for research.”

“As a senior in a pre-med concentration in the Family and Consumer Sciences department, she has been involved in several different activities to build up her experience for her medical school application,” Kang said.  “However, her busy schedule could not prevent her research enthusiasm.  She always came to the lab on time and learned experiments.”

Artis’ determination would lend itself to her project thesis: investigating a natural, sustainable way of preventing hyperglycemia, a major metabolic symptom of diabetes.

Although there are several strategies to improve diabetic conditions, such as changing diet, exercise, and limiting alcohol intake, Artis says, inhibiting intestinal carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes – enzymes that break carbohydrates down so that they can be absorbed as glucose – is a well-known, effective way to prevent hyperglycemia.

But the medications that traditionally are used for this have side effects, Artis says.

“Although acarbose is an anti-diabetic drug that effectively inhibits carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes,” Artis said in her study, “it has some adverse effects such as abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, and presence of a mild skin rash that lessen the quality of life for patients with diabetes. Therefore, finding a new way to reduce hyperglycemia is critical.”

Seeking a more sustainable, less adverse solution, Artis turned to brewer’s spent grain, a reusable byproduct found in beer production. Brewer’s spent grain makes up 85 percent of brewing waste, but has frequently been repurposed as animal feed for livestock, fertilizer and as a human food additive because of its high levels of protein and fiber.

Her project, “Inhibitory Effect of Brewers’ Spent Grain Extract on Intestinal Carbohydrate-Hydrolyzing Enzymes In Vitro,” investigated the phenolic content in the grain to determine its abilities to lower glucose levels in the bloodstream.

“First, it started with a literature review,” said Artis. “I had to look at what the common uses for the grain already were. I had to look at the ability to extract it. I looked at what carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes are and their mechanisms, and then I also looked at polyphenols.”

Polyphenols are naturally occurring compounds found in plants such as fruits and vegetables that can inhibit the intestinal carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes which increase blood glucose levels.

Through a liquid-to-liquid extraction and incubation period, Artis analyzed the inhibitory effects of different concentrations of brewer’s spent grain extract on intestinal α-glucosidase and pancreatic a-amylase, two proteins that help break down carbohydrates and starches into sugar. Acarbose, the anti-diabetic drug cited in her research, was used as a control in the experiment, serving as the point of comparison against which other test results are measured.

After incubation and testing, Artis’ study revealed the extracts had shown inhibitory effects to the carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes, indicating that the polyphenols in brewer’s spent grain have the potential to decrease high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, and reduce diabetic conditions.

Artis worked with Olugbenga Balogun, a second-year Ph.D. student studying with Kang, on her project.

“He (Balogun) was really hands-on with helping me every step of the way,” said Artis. “He was very, very patient.”

“I was privileged to work with Lia,” Balogun said. “I say ‘privileged’ because she is a very good student. She learns so fast and with excellence. She has full-ride scholarships to several universities and it’s easy to see why. She made it very easy in the experimenting process.”