Alp Ikizler

T. Alp Ikizler is a nephrologist, currently holding the Catherine McLaughlin Hakim chair in Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he does clinical work and heads a research lab.

[1] Dr. Ikizler's research focuses on the nutritional and metabolic aspects of kidney disease.

Specifically, his work involves identifying reliable and practical tests for protein-caloric malnutrition, which is associated with heightened risks of mortality in kidney failure patients, and using these tests to assess different treatment strategies.

[2] Work by Ikizler's team showed that dialysis-stimulated proteolysis is partly induced by inflammation;[3] and that parenteral nutrition during dialysis,[4] as well as exercise during dialysis,[5] can mitigate the defects in protein metabolism.

Later, papers assessed the effectiveness of oral nutritional supplementation, alone or with resistance exercise.