The research of Dr. Ruth Grossmann is focused on clinical nutrition, specifically the evaluation of micronutrient and dietary interventions in hospitalized and community-living individuals. She is very interested in understanding the role of micronutrients in health and recovery from acute and chronic illnesses. There is a lot of nutrition information in the media and health care today; her goal is to provide well-researched interventions that are effective in the treatment of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cystic fibrosis and multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Grossmann is developing expertise in the growing field of nutritional metabolomics for the identification of novel biomarkers of nutrient intake. One of her current studies involves dietary interventions for randomly selected individuals with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Grossmann uses metabolomics to evaluate the role of micronutrient deficiency in the prevention and treatment of obesity. She also conducts traditional clinical nutrition interventions such as vitamin D supplementation in subjects with cystic fibrosis. Individuals with cystic fibrosis are at high risk of vitamin D deficiency and she has published the results from a clinical trial of high dose vitamin D in cystic fibrosis that lead to reduced mortality, reduced hospitalizations and reduced the necessity for antibiotics.

Nursing has a key role in the prevention and treatment of lifestyle related conditions that are epidemic today, and Dr. Grossmann believes that nurses need to understand nutrition interventions and be able to care for clients by supporting them in improving their diets—this includes developing nutrition competencies for RNs and ARNPs to better prepare nurses to use nutrition interventions in their practice.

Curriculum Vitae