Exploring Pediatric Obesity Research with Justin Ryder, Clinical Research Advisor at Calorify

With a career dedicated to advancing the understanding and treatment of pediatric obesity, Justin Ryder, PhD has pioneered innovative approaches to tackling this critical public health challenge.

In this interview, he shares insights into his journey, the transformative role of doubly labeled water (DLW) in his research, and his vision for the future of pediatric obesity studies. Learn how his work and Calorify’s cutting-edge solutions are driving progress in this vital field.

Q: Tell us a bit more about your career and academic journey. Why obesity research, and why specifically pediatric obesity research? How did you get here?

A: I started to work with kids and health in high school as a swim coach and quickly realized that activity and healthy lifestyles could play an important role in outcomes for these children. Kids are the foundation and future of a society and I felt my efforts were best placed focusing on them.  My educational mission evolved over time to focus on treatment of pediatric obesity and examining all treatment options that were available (lifestyle, medications, and surgery). This was due to the fact that one-size fits all treatment was not effective and that really our public health approach towards pediatric obesity was not producing effective results.  So my training has focused on innovative strategies, rooted in biology, that focus on treatment for obesity with a district need to measure physiology as best as possible.

Q: You have a history of using DLW in your research. When did you first learn of it and start incorporating it into your trials? How has it advanced your research and improved outcomes in patients? What role does it play in developing solutions?

A:  I remember pretty clearly at an American College of Sports Medicine Conference in 2011 that I had the only poster on pediatric studies that had blood draws and biomarkers, while many adult studies had really sophisticated science. I felt this was a huge missed opportunity for the field as most pediatric studies were focused on qualitative or measures non-proximal to biology.  Thus, I tried to see what adult studies were doing in terms of innovation and measurement of biology and started to apply those to pediatric studies.  Hence, the need for gold-standard measurement of energy expenditure and metabolic adaptation, DLW offers a non-invasive and practical solution for measurement in pediatrics that increases the rigor of the science. It provides a robust way of understanding the impact treatments can have on energy regulation and not just in adults but in developing humans.

Q: Are you submitting any interesting grants in the next five years? Where is the field of pediatric obesity research heading?

A: The first rule of grant writing “always be submitting” you never know what is going to land and when.  I am really focused on biology based treatment, medications and surgery, understanding why they work, and who they might work best in.  Many treatment (GLP-1s and others) are really hot right now, but we do not understand the implications for use in pediatrics well, so we are going to need to study the good and the potentially unintended outcomes of these treatment in younger person to craft clinical care over the next few years.

Q: If cost wasn’t a barrier in DLW testing, how would that change how you use it in your research? How do you think that would change clinical research as a whole?

A: If cost was not a barrier I would use it in every participant and patient at every visit to tailor treatment approaches and understand the trajectory of energy regulation as weight loss or maintenance of weight is achieved. Additionally, a key aspect of DLW that is often missed is that it measures body composition as well, which at scale could be used for tracking of body fatness and muscle mass.  Currently, the methods for doing so like DXA are expensive and not scalable, while other methods like BMI are limited in not being specific to body composition.

Q: Why did you join Calorify?

A: Calorify is disruptive and innovative in terms of being the only commercial solution for DLW to the masses and the potential to provide cost-effective measurement of gold-standard measures of physiological based measurements in many populations. Currently, while I might want to have DLW measured in all of my participants at all time points it is impractical and cost-prohibitive, few labs can measure the volumes I need, and the kits are cumbersome.  In the coming years, Calorify will solve each of the key impediments and really create a highly utilitarian product for wide scale use in obesity and other related areas of study and clinical care.