2004-2005 Winner

Dr. Bruce Holub University of Guelph Guelph, ON

Winner of the Gordin Kaplan Award Lecture

Dr. Holub was presented with the Gordin Kaplan because of his efforts to educate the public on health aspects of omega-3 and trans fatty acids in the diet.

Bruce has a genuine interest in the health of Canadians. Bruce has always considered it to be a personal responsibility to transfer his knowledge, by every possible avenue, to the greatest number of people who can be reached.

For thirty years, his teaching of undergraduate and graduate students has raised awareness of healthy lifestyle choices and preventive medicine. Bruce teaches from a solid scientific basis, but he extends most topics to an applied level, covering political, social, and economic aspects of health care. He has inspired several thousand undergraduate students through his teaching of a course designated Fundamentals of Nutrition, which are both a foundation course and a gateway course for nutrition programs at the University of Guelph. Dr. Holub inspired large numbers of graduate students, mentoring a total of 52 MSc and PhD students and postdoctoral fellows many of whom have gone on to communicate their knowledge to the public in a wide variety of different jobs. Dr. Holub has made remarkable efforts to communicate directly with the public through invited lectures, chapter in books, and interviews with newspapers, radio and television. Many of his over 200 invited presentations have been public audiences, and to health professionals. He speaks at medical schools, encouraging future doctors to learn more about nutrition and preventative medicine. He has had numerous meeting with policy makers to address public health issues like the labelling of trans fats in foods.

For more than ten years, Dr. Holub has been telling government and industry about the risks of trans fats. Apart from changes in labelling, which Dr. Holub lobbied for, it was clear that trans fat usage was not going to be regulated by the government. In addition, the food industry would continue to use trans fats until forced toward higher-cost alternatives. Bruce recognized that the buying public has the real power to effect these changes, and he played a decisive role in the shift public opinion that led to the large-scale adoption of trans-fat free processing techniques that we have seen in the last 6 months.