Floyd "Ski" Chilton

About

Floyd "Ski" Chilton, PhD, is a professor in the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness and serves as the Director of the Center for Precision Nutrition and Wellness. His research focuses on providing solutions to overcome physical and emotional suffering to enable people to live better, more joyful lives. He is a pioneer in the fields of personalized and precision nutrition, with extensive work examining how genetic and epigenetic variations interact with human diets—particularly the modern Western diet—to influence inflammation and inflammatory disorders such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and psychiatric/developmental disorders including ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and depression. Dr. Chilton has over 30 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and has authored more than 140 scientific publications. He is also an inventor holding over 25 patents and has started several companies and a non-profit organization. In addition to his research, he has authored five lay books on nutrition, diet, and health, with his most recent work addressing the impact of thought patterns on genetic and epigenetic changes and brain circuitry. His contributions have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Alumni Achievement Award at Western Carolina University, the Denham Harmon Outstanding Research Achievement Award from the American College for Advancement of Medicine, and the 2016 Established Investigator Award at Wake Forest School of…

Research topics

• Medicine
• Biology
• Internal medicine
• Genetics
• Gastroenterology
• Cancer research
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics
• Environmental health
• Cell biology

Selected publications

• Genomics in Personalized Nutrition: Can You “Eat for Your Genes”?

  Nutrients · 2020 · 132 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data are now quickly and inexpensively acquired, raising the prospect of creating personalized dietary recommendations based on an individual's genetic variability at multiple SNPs. However, relatively little is known about most specific gene-diet interactions, and many molecular and clinical phenotypes of interest (e.g., body mass index [BMI]) involve multiple genes. In this review, we discuss direct to consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT) and the c…

  DOI

• Group IIA secreted phospholipase A2 is associated with the pathobiology leading to COVID-19 mortality

  Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2021 · 99 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  There is an urgent need to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for severe COVID-19 that results in death. We initially performed both untargeted and targeted lipidomics as well as focused biochemical analyses of 127 plasma samples and found elevated metabolites associated with secreted phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) activity and mitochondrial dysfunction in patients with severe COVID-19. Deceased COVID-19 patients had higher levels of circulating, catalytically active sPLA2 grou…

  DOI

• Genome-wide association studies and fine-mapping identify genomic loci for n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in Hispanic American and African American cohorts

  Communications Biology · 2023-08-16 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Omega-3 (n-3) and omega-6 (n-6) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play critical roles in human health. Prior genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of n-3 and n-6 PUFAs in European Americans from the CHARGE Consortium have documented strong genetic signals in/near the FADS locus on chromosome 11. We performed a GWAS of four n-3 and four n-6 PUFAs in Hispanic American ( n = 1454) and African American ( n = 2278) participants from three CHARGE cohorts. Applying a genome-wide significanc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Perspective: Council for Responsible Nutrition Science in Session. Optimizing Health with Nutrition—Opportunities, Gaps, and the Future

  Advances in Nutrition · 2023-06-01 · 9 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Achieving optimal health is an aspirational goal for the population, yet the definition of health remains unclear. The role of nutrition in health has evolved beyond correcting malnutrition and specific deficiencies and has begun to focus more on achieving and maintaining 'optimal' health through nutrition. As such, the Council for Responsible Nutrition held its October 2022 Science in Session conference to advance this concept. Here, we summarize and discuss the findings of their Optimizing Hea…

  PublisherDOI

• Impact of FADS gene variation and dietary fatty acid exposure on biochemical and anthropomorphic phenotypes in a Hispanic/Latino cohort

  Frontiers in Nutrition · 2023-05-05 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Introduction Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and highly unsaturated fatty acid (HUFA) synthetic products and their signaling metabolites play vital roles in immunity, inflammation, and brain development/function. Frequency differences of variants within the fatty acid desaturase ( FADS ) gene cluster affect levels of HUFAs, their biologically active products, and numerous physiological phenotypes. Fundamental questions remain regarding the impact of this genetic variation on the health of His…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• A Genotype-Stratified Mechanistic Trial of Omega-3 Fatty Acids and FADS Variants in Diet-Induced Inflammation

  NIH · $4.6M · 2015–2030

• NIH Grant R01AI042022

  NIH · $1.2M · 2003

• NIH Grant P50AT002782

  NIH · $22.6M · 2016

Frequent coauthors

• Richard B. van Breemen

  Oregon State University

  101 shared

• Connie M. Weaver

  San Diego State University

  101 shared

• Ilya Raskin

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  101 shared

• William T. Cefalu

  101 shared

• Norman R. Farnsworth

  University of Illinois Chicago

  101 shared

• Diane F. Birt

  Iowa State University

  101 shared

• Barrie R. Cassileth

  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

  101 shared

• Stephen Barnes

  101 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Biochemistry

  Wake Forest University

  1984

• B.S., Biology / Chemistry

  Western Carolina University

  1984

Awards & honors

• Alumni Achievement Award at Western Carolina University
• Denham Harmon Outstanding Research Achievement Award from th…
• 2016 Established Investigator Award at Wake Forest School of…

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