USDA post-doctoral fellow Maldonado-Pereira investigates cholesterol oxidation's impact on the American Diet
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EmailMaldonado-Pereira, an USDA post-doctoral fellow, is investigating the impact cholesterol oxidation in foods, specifically processed foods in the American diet.
July 27, 2023
Lisaura Maldonado-Pereira has always been passionate about research, which began in 2011 when she worked at the pharmaceutical company Merck. She completed one year at the chemical plant in Barceloneta, PR, and a summer at the West Point, 
Pennsylvania headquarters. She worked as an engineering assistant in both locations' product development, manufacturing, and engineering departments.
In 2014, Maldonado-Pereira completed her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagez Campus. That same year, she began a Ph.D. in the Chemical Engineering Department at Michigan State University (MSU). She has a double doctorate in the MSU Department of Biosystems Engineering and Agriculture and Chemical Engineering Department at MSU. Maldonado-Pereira joined the Food and Health Engineering Lab, led by Dr. Ilce Medina-Meza, in 2017. In 2021, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded Maldonado-Pereira a post-doctoral fellowship to complete a toxicological investigation of cholesterol oxidation products in the American diet.
Maldonado-Pereira's research focuses on cholesterol oxidation products (known as DOxS) in foods. Cholesterol can be found in anything animal-based and can be oxidized by processing factors such as cooking conditions, packaging techniques, and transportation methods. Maldonado-Pereira's research looks at how DOxS are absorbed into the body and how they are related to different chronic diseases like obesity, cancer, and atherosclerosis, among others. A previous study Maldonado-Pereira worked on provided baseline data on how much DOxS are found in products like baby food, fast food, and convenience foods. Packaged foods usually go through many processing steps, like cooking and frying. The first study discovered exactly how much DOxS can be found in each product.
In her current study, Maldonado-Pereira runs a pharmaceutical study, looking at how much DOxS are digested, absorbed into the body, metabolized, and excreted. The study, together with the database previously created, will be able to provide recommendations for what types of meals in the USA diet have a more positive impact on the body by avoiding DOxS accumulation through diet.
'this study will help to understand how these DOxS behave inside our body after their ingestion and therefore, how the American diet plays a role in their accumulation which could potentially be related to the people's likelihood to develop different chronic diseases. Said Maldonado-Pereira.
This pharmacokinetics study is the first of its kind to look at how much of certain types of cholesterol oxidation products are absorbed and will provide groundbreaking baseline research. In the future, Maldonado-Pereira wants to continue building off this research focused on other diets such as the Puerto Rican one which is totally different from the American diet, even though Puerto Rico is a US territory. This will help her to provide a larger data set for other researchers and the public. Research like Maldonado-Pereira's will provide insight to professionals in the food and healthcare industry. They can utilize the information from this study to recommend foods and provide more accurate guidelines for consumers.
