Nathalie Bergeron, PhD

Areas of Expertise

Nutrition, Lipid and Lipoprotein Metabolism

Biography

Dr. Bergeron graduated from Laval University, Canada, with a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry. She pursued postdoctoral training at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco, where she specialized in postprandial lipoprotein metabolism and its modulation by diet. Dr. Bergeron began her academic career as a Research Professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at Laval University. She was then a visiting professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley before joining Touro University California College of Pharmacy as a founding faculty member in 2005. As a TUCOP faculty member, she has taught in the areas of lipid and lipoprotein metabolism/hyperlipidemias; diabetes; obesity and related metabolic disorders; and nutrition. Dr. Bergeron has also served as Chair of the Department of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and, most recently, has been the college’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

Dr. Bergeron is recognized for her clinical research focusing on dietary composition with a special emphasis on carbohydrate and fat quantity and quality and their relationship to cardiometabolic health. Her more recent research activities include studying the impact of dietary protein sources on lipoproteins and novel markers of cardiovascular disease risk derived from intestinal bacterial metabolism. Both in her current position at Touro University, and in her previous academic positions Dr. Bergeron has engaged in research activities funded by both federal and non-federal grant programs, including the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the American Diabetes Association and the National Institutes of Health, along with investigator-initiated funding from the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Dairy Research Institute and the Almond Board of California. She has served on federal grant study sections, has authored ~60 publications, has co-edited a textbook entitled “Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Heath”, and has been an invited speaker at International Nutrition Conferences.

Education

• Laval University, Québec    B.S., RD.    1982-1985    Health Sciences (Dietetics)
• Laval University, Québec    M.S.    1986-1988    Nutrition
• Laval University, Québec    Ph.D.    1988-1992    Nutrition
• University of California, San Francisco    Postdoc    1992-1996    Nutritional Biochemistry, Physiology

Honors and Awards

• 2009 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy – Academic Leadership Fellows Program
• 2015 Biological Sciences Professor of the year (College of Pharmacy Class of 2017)
• 2016 Biological Sciences Professor of the year (College of Pharmacy Class of 2018)
• 2022 Bergeron, Nathalie, Touro University California – Awarded the Gold Award for the TUC Research Publication Award In the Biomedical, Health, and Natural Sciences Category
• 2022 Bergeron, Nathalie, Touro University California – Awarded the Silver Award for the TUS Research Publication Award In the Biomedical, Health, and Natural Sciences Category

Recent Publications

Faghihnia N, Mangravite LM, Chiu S, Bergeron N, Krauss RM.  Effects of dietary saturated fat on atherogenic LDL subclasses and apolipoprotein C-III. Eur J Clin Nutr 2012; 66(11):1229-33

Schwarz JM,   Noworolski SM, Len M, Dyachenko A, Prior J, Weinberg M, Herraiz L, Bergeron N, Bersot T, Rao MN, Schambelan M, Mulligan K.  Effect of a High-Fructose Weight-Maintaining Diet on Lipogenesis and Liver Fat. JCEM 2015 Jun;100(6):2434-42.

Siri-Tarino PW, Chiu S, Bergeron N, Krauss RM. Saturated Fats Versus Polyunsaturated Fats Versus Carbohydrates for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Treatment.  Annu Rev Nutr. 2015;35:517-43

Bergeron N, Phan B-A, Ding Y., Fong A., Krauss RM. PCSK9 Inhibition: A New Therapeutic Mechanism for Reducing Cardiovascular Disease Risk. Circulation 2015;132:1648-1666

Chiu, S., Bergeron, N., Williams, P., Bray, G., Sutherland, B., Krauss, R.M.  Comparison of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet and a higher fat DASH diet on blood pressure and lipids and lipoproteins: A randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr 2016;103:341–7

Bergeron N, Williams PT Lamendella R., Faghihnia N, Grube A, Li X, Wang Z, Jansson J, Hazen SL, Krauss RM. Diets high in resistant starch increase plasma levels of trimethylamine-N-oxide, a gut microbiome metabolite associated with CVD risk. Br J Nutr 2016, 116, 2020–2029

Bergeron N., Alsaiegh S., Ip E. J. Do California Pharmacy and Medical Students Practice What They Preach?  An Analysis of Dietary and Lifestyle Practices. Am J Pharm Ed 2017; 81(8): 56-64.

Maier TV, Lucio M, Lee LH, VerBerkmoes NC, Brislawn CJ, Bernhardt J, Lamendella R, McDermott JE, Bergeron N, Heinzmann SS, Morton JT, González A, Ackermann G, Knight R, Riedel K, Krauss RM, Schmitt-Kopplin P, Jansson JK.. Impact of Dietary Resistant Starch on the Human Gut Microbiome, Metaproteome, and Metabolome. mBio 2017; 8(5). e01343-17

Bergeron, N. and Krauss R.M. Ch. 16. Dietary Starches and Grains: Effects on Cardiometabolic Risk. In, Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Health, 1st edition. CRC Press, Taylor Francis Group. 2018.

Bergeron N., Siri-Tarino P.W., Bray G.A, Krauss R.M. (Editors). Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Health, 1st edition. CRC Press, Taylor Francis Group. 2018.

Marius Vital, Adina Howe, Nathalie Bergeron, Ronald Krauss, Janet Jansson, James Tiedje. Metagenomic insights into resistant starch degradation by human gut microbiota. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2018 pii: e01562-18. doi: 10.1128/AEM.01562-18.

Jennifer M. Lang, Calvin Pana, Rita M. Cantor, Ira Kurtz, Stanley L. Hazen, Nathalie Bergeron, Ronald M. Krauss, Aldons. Lusis. Impact of saturated fat, dietary protein source, and personal traits on the gut microbiome. mBio 2018.  Dec 11;9(6). pii: e01604-18. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01604-18.

Zeneng Wang* , Nathalie Bergeron* , Bruce S. Levison , Xinmin S. Li , Sally Chiu , Xun Ji , Robert A. Koeth, Lin Li , Yuping Wu , W.H. Wilson Tang, Ronald M. Krauss , and Stanley L. Hazen. Impact of chronic dietary red meat, white meat or non-meat protein on trimethylamine N-oxide metabolism and renal excretion in healthy men and women. Eur Heart J. 2019 Feb 14;40(7):583-594. * Z. Wang and N. Bergeron are co-first authors.

Bergeron N, Chiu S, Williams PT, King SM, Krauss RM. Effects of red meat, white meat and non-meat protein sources on atherogenic lipoprotein measures in the context of low vs. high saturated fat intake: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr 2019;110:24–33

Williams PT, Bergeron N, Chiu S, Krauss RM. A randomized, controlled trial on the effects of almonds on lipoprotein response to a higher carbohydrate, lower fat diet in men and women with abdominal adiposity. Lipids Health Dis 18, 83 (2019) doi:10.1186/s12944-019-1025-4. Williams PT and Bergeron N are co-first.

Chiu S, Siri-Tarino P, Bergeron N, Suh J and Krauss RM. A Randomized Study of the Effect of Replacing Sugar Sweetened Soda by Reduced Fat Milk on Cardiometabolic Health in Male Adolescent Soda Drinkers. Nutrients 2020 Feb 4;12(2):405. doi: 10.3390/nu12020405.

Jennifer A. Buffa, Kymberleigh A. Romano, Matthew F. Copeland, David B. Cody, Weifei Zhu, Rachel Galvez, Xiaoming Fu, Kathryn Ward, Marc Ferrell, Hong J. Dai, Sarah Skye, Ping Hu, Lin Li, Mirjana Parlov, Amy McMillan, Xingtao Wei, Ina Nemet, Robert A. Koeth,  Xinmin S. Li, Zeneng Wang, Naseer Sangwan,  Adeline M. Hajjar, Mohammed Dwidar, Taylor L. Weeks, Nathalie Bergeron, Ronald M. Krauss, W.H. Wilson Tang, Federico E. Rey Joseph A. DiDonato, Valentin Gogonea, G. Frank Gerberick, Jose Carlos Garcia-Garcia, and  Stanley L. Hazen.   The microbial gbu gene cluster links cardiovascular disease risk associated with red meat consumption to microbiota L-carnitine catabolism. Nature Research 2021. In Press.

Memberships and Affiliations

American Society for Nutrition (ASN)