ENCYCLOPEDIA BIO

Noel W. Solomons has lived and worked in Guatemala for 40 years. He was born and educated in Massachusetts in the United States. As a young child, he became an amateur naturalist and was a nature counselor at various summer camps; this would guide him to a career in science. In his young adulthood, he would participate in the civil rights and anti-war movements, only to become disillusioned by the intractable nature of the injustice elements in the fabric of American society. A physician by graduate training, he performed his university studies at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School; it was during overseas electives in his medical training that he visited Peru and Colombia and committed to an expatriate life trajectory outside of his homeland. Clinical training included a residency in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and specialization in gastroenterology and clinical nutrition at the University of Chicago. He became a resident of Guatemala in 1974 as an Affiliated Investigator at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama. He would later commute for eight years to a faculty position in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Assuming a full-time Guatemala commitment in 1985, he co-founded the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM) where he remains its scientific Director. Over 40 local university theses have been completed by Central American students in that institution as well as an equal number of master’s degree research projects from international students from Europe, and North and South America. He has supervised doctoral dissertations for 12 PhD candidates from the USA, Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands through CeSSIAM.

Dr. Solomons has 332 publications indexed on Medline. In addition, he has edited two books and contributed over 100 articles, reviews, editorials, and commentaries in non-indexed venues and over 50 book chapters. These are dedicated to the scientific and academic interests of his career including: clinical nutrition; human growth and body composition; lactose maldigestion; dietary intake, nutritional status, intestinal absorption, and food fortification related to various micronutrients (vitamins, trace elements and essential fatty acids); complementary feeding; nutrition in aging and chronic disease; and the interaction of malnutrition and infection.

Among the honors bestowed upon Dr. Solomons are the International Nutrition Prize of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, the Kellogg Prize of the Society for International Nutrition Research. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Nutrition. He is an Academic member of the Guatemalan Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences and the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Food Science. He was the awardee of the 2010 National Medal for Science and Technology for Guatemala.

He has been a visiting professor in university courses in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Indonesia and Spain. He currently holds adjunct professorial appointments at the Boston University School of Public Health, and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Department of Community Medicine and Public Health, both at Tufts University. He is a founding Board of Directors member of the Hildegard Grunow Foundation in Munich and the Essential Nutrient Foundation of Singapore. Finally, Dr. Solomons is the Coordinator for Central America of the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation in Boston, and Associate Editor for the Foundation’s Food and Nutrition Bulletin. He serves on Editorial Boards for 10 scientific journals.

Publications

R26: Iron metabolism in obesity: How interaction between homoeostatic mechanisms can interfere with their original purpose. Part II: Epidemiological and historic aspects of the iron/obesity interaction R25: Iron metabolism in obesity: How interaction between homoeostatic mechanisms can interfere with their original purpose. Part I: Underlying homoeostatic mechanisms of energy storage and iron metabolisms and their interaction R24: Risiken und Nutzen der Eisensupplementation: Empfehlungen zur Eisenaufnahme kritisch betrachtet R23: Can iron supplementation be reconciled with benefits and risks in areas hyperendemic for malaria? R20: Iron: Nutrition’s two-edged sword R19: Efficacy and safety of iron administration in juvenile populations R18: Rainer Gross’ legacy R10: On risk and benefits of iron supplementation recommendations for iron intake revisited R08: Safety of interventions to reduce nutritional anemias R07: Update on vitamin A-related deaths in Assam. Reply to letter by Dr. Kapil (Letter to the Editor) R06: Editorial: Intramuscular iron dextrane is not appropriate for moderate anemia of pregnancy: not in intervention research on underprivileged women, and never in routine public health care R05: Überlegungen und Befunde zur Eisenfortifikation von Nahrungsmitteln in der 3. Welt R03: Lessons learned in iron intervention trials R02: Collateral damage in the battle against hypovitaminosis A? N48: The potential double-burden of vitamin A malnutrition: under- and overconsumption of fortified table sugar in the Guatemalan highlands N47: Vitamin D status among indigenous Mayan (Kekchi) and Afro-Caribe (Garifuna) adolescents from Guatemala: a comparative description between two ethnic groups residing on the Rio Dulce at the Caribbean coast in Izabal Province, Guatemala N46: Interrelationship between maternal subclinical mastitis (SCM) and infant anthropometry in Guatemala: Role of infection, inflammation, hygiene and lactation practices N45: The stunted child with an overweight mother as a growing public health concern in resource-poor environments: A case study from Guatemala N43: Interaction of Giardia intestinalis and Systemic Oxidation in Preschool Children in the Western Highlands of Guatemala N42: Strong associations exist among oxidative stress and antioxidant biomarkers in the circulating, cellular and urinary compartments in Guatemalan children from the Western Highlands N39: Associations among inflammatory biomarkers in the circulating, plasmatic, salivary and intraluminal compartments in apparently healthy preschool children, from the Western Highlands of Guatemala N38: Variation in hydration status within normative range is associated with urinary biomarkers of sytemic oxidative stress in Guatemalan preschool children N37: Stunting at birth: recognition of early-life linear growth failure in the western highlands of Guatemala N36: The Nutritional Contribution of Foods and Beverages Provided by Government-Sponsored Day Care Centers in Guatemala N35: Feeding patterns before 6 months of age: the relative validity of recall from interviews of mothers of Guatemalan infants and toddlers N34: Urinary osmolality of preschool children with a largely common weekday meal offering, from the western highlands of Guatemala N32: Earlier introduction of aguitas is associated with higher risk of stunting in infants and toddlers in the Western Highlands of Guatemala N31: Highland Guatemalan women are extremely short of stature, and no lactation duration effects on body composition are observed in a cross-sectional survey N30: Nutrient density in complementary feeding of infants and toddlers N29: Stunting rates in infants and toddlers born in metropolitan Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N27: Estimates of exclusive breastfeeding rates among mother-infant dyads in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, vary according to interview method and time frame N26: Daily consumption of foods and nutrients from institutional and home sources among young children attending two contrasting day-care centers in Guatemala City N25: The concept of “critical nutrient density” in complementary feeding: the demands of the “family foods” for the nutrient adequacy of young Guatemalan children with continued breastfeeding N24: Ritual fluids in relation to early child nutrition in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N23: Evaluating food menus from day care centers in Guatemala City: Descriptive and analytical approaches for consideration in Nutrition N22: Beverage consumption and anthropometric outcomes among schoolchildren in Guatemala N21: Agreement between dietary and lifestyle guidelines for cancer prevention in population samples of Europeans and Mesoamericans N20: Bioavailability of zinc from NutriSet zinc tablets compared with aqueous zinc sulfate N19: Food variety, dietary diversity, and food characteristics among convenience samples of Guatemalan women N18: Contribution of complementary food nutrients to estimated total nutrient intakes for urban Guatemalan infants in the second semester of life N17: Reproducibility regarding the age of introduction of complementary foods to infants as self-reported by urban and rural low-income mothers in Guatemala N16: Nutrient offerings from the meals and snacks served in four day care centres in Guatemala City N15: Concordance with selected population recommendations for cancer prevention among third- and fourth-grade schoolchildren in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N14: Practical limitations to a positive deviance approach for identifying dietary patterns compatible with the reduction of cancer risk N13: Concordance with dietary lifestyle population goals for cancer prevention in Dutch, Scottish, Mexican, and Guatemalan population samples N12: Contribution of complementary food nutrients to estimated total nutrient intakes for rural Guatemalan infants in the second semester of life N11: Contribution of complementary foods to the total daily water needs of urban Guatemalan infants N10: Dietary intakes and food sources of fat and fatty acids in Guatemalan schoolchildren: a cross-sectional study N09: Contribution of beverages to energy, macronutrient and micronutrient intake of third- and fourth-grade schoolchildren in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N08: Volume, frequency and participation in plain drinking water consumption by third- and fourth-grade schoolchildren in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N07: Total dietary water intake in Guatemalan Children N06: Ready-to-eat cereals are key sources of selected micronutrients among schoolchildren from public and private elementary schools in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N05: Distribution of macro- and micronutrient intakes in relation to the meal pattern of third- and fourth-grade schoolchildren in the city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala N04: Dietary characteristics of complementary food offered to Guatemalan infants vary between urban and rural settings N03: The positive deviance approach can be used to create culturally appropriate eating guides compatible with reduced cancer risk N02: Concordance with the New American Plate guidelines of the American Institute for Cancer Research in Guatemalan children N01: Evaluating concordance with the 1997 World Cancer Research Fund/ American Institute of Cancer Research cancer prevention guidelines: challenges for the research community I52: The growth attainment, hematological, iron status and inflammatory profile of Guatemalan juvenile end-stage renal disease patients I46: Differences in circulating non-transferrin-bound iron after oral administration of ferrous sulfate, sodium iron EDTA, or iron polymaltose in women with marginal iron stores I45: Targeted provision of oral iron: The evolution of a practical screening option I44: Validity and correspondence of non-invasively determined hemoglobin concentrations by two trans-cutaneous digital measuring devices I43: Equivalent effects on fecal reactive oxygen species generation with oral supplementation of three iron compounds: ferrous sulfate, sodium iron EDTA and iron polymaltose I42: Studies on variation in fecal reactive oxidative species generation in free-living populations in Guatemala I40: Oral administration of ferrous sulfate, but not of iron polymaltose or sodium iron ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (NaFeEDTA), results in a substantial increase of non-transferrin-bound iron in healthy iron-adequate men I39: Response of urinary biomarkers of systemic oxidation to oral iron supplementation in healthy men I38: Impact of iron status and oral iron challenges on circulating non-transferrin-bound iron (NTBI) in healthy Guatemalan males I35: Reproducibility and correspondence among different hepcidin forms in blood and urine and their relationships to iron status in healthy, male Guatemalan volunteers observed over 9 weeks I34: Bioavailability of zinc from Nutriset zinc tablets compared to aqueous zinc sulphate I32: Correspondence of a non-invasive, cutaneous-contact method to determine hemoglobin values with conventional whole blood samples within a Guatemalan field setting I30: Antioxidant-rich Oral Supplements Attenuate the Effects of Oral Iron on In Situ Oxidation Susceptibility of Human Feces I27: Efficacy and safety of twice-weekly administration of three RDAs of iron and folic acid with and without complement of 14 essential micronutrients at one or two RDAs: a placebo-controlled intervention trial in anemic Cambodian infants 6 to 24 months of age I18: Haematological response to haem iron or ferrous sulphate mixed with refried black beans in moderately anaemic Guatemalan pre-school children I17: Monitoring of haematological, inflammatory and oxidative reactions to acute oral iron exposure in human volunteers: preliminary screening for selection of potentially-responsive biomarkers I15: Day-to-day variation in iron, zinc and copper in breast milk of Guatemalan mothers