Registered Dietitian, High Performance Sport & Exercise Nutrition registrant, Researcher and Lecturer in Sport & Exercise Nutrition, Dr Catherine Norton has over 20 years’ experience in food and health, across industry, healthcare, professional sport, and academia. Dr Norton is an active member of the Health Research Institute (HRI), Sport and Human Performance Research Centre (SHPRC), UL Cancer Network (ULCaN), and associate member of Physical Activity for Health (PAfH)  and Ageing Research Centre (ARC) clusters.  Catherine is past chair  and current committee member of the Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute (INDI)  Sport & Exercise Nutrition Interest Group (SENG)  and currently sits on the directorate of the European Sports Nutrition Society (ESNS). She also holds associate membership in the British Dietetic Association (BDA) Sport & Exercise Nutrition Group (SEN).

Catherine’s research broadly aims to optimise peoples’ food knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours to support better health and performance. She works across different populations including patients, the aging, students and elite athletes. Catherine’s varied research interests merge where we consider how environmental factors (built spaces) influence food choices and behaviours for all these different groups. In collaboration with colleagues at UL, Catherine has received programme funding from Food for Health Ireland (FHI, http://www.fhi.ie/) to investigate the efficacy of nutrient supplementation with proteins mined from milk to provide metabolic outcomes which support Healthy Ageing and Performance Nutrition (HAPN). Catherine has also received funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/),  Erasmus + (Home | Erasmus+ (europa.eu)), the Irish Research Council (http://research.ie/) and several industry partners including Sport Ireland Institute (http://www.instituteofsport.ie/)

Catherine is a dedicated educator with a Masters degree in Teaching, Learning & Scholarship. She is the current course director for the Master of Science in Sports Performance, teaching nutrition across team, strength, speed and endurance sports. Catherine also teaches into the BSc Sport & Exercise Sciences (nutrition, ergogenics and ethics) and to the BSc Physical Education (nutrition for health and performance, supplements in sports performance) undergraduate programmes. Catherine successfully led a team submission from her department which was awarded the Education & Health Science faculty and institutional award for Excellence in Teaching in 2022.

Publications

Norton C.;Hettiarachchi M.;Cooke R.;Kozior M.;Kontro H.;Daniel R.;Jakeman P. (2022) 'Effect of 24-Week, Late-Evening Ingestion of a Calcium-Fortified, Milk-Based Protein Matrix on Biomarkers of Bone Metabolism and Site-Specific Bone Mineral Density in Postmenopausal Women with Osteopenia'. Nutrients, 14 (17). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14173486

 

Norton, C. and Toomey, C. and McCormack, W.G. and Francis, P. and Saunders, J. and Kerin, E. and Jakeman, P. (2016) 'Protein supplementation at breakfast and lunch for 24 weeks beyond habitual intakes increases whole-body lean tissue mass in healthy older adults'. Journal of Nutrition, 146 (1). https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.115.219022

 

Gilhooly, M., Cahalan, R., O'Sullivan, K. and Norton, C., 2023. A systematic literature review of injury epidemiology and surveillance practices in elite adult female field-based team sport. Journal of science and medicine in sport. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2023.04.010

 

Zabetakis I.;Lordan R.;Norton C.;Tsoupras A. (2020) COVID-19: The Inflammation Link and the Role of Nutrition in Potential Mitigation. Reviews. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12051466

 

Toomey, C.M. and Cremona, A. and Hughes, K. and Norton, C. and Jakeman, P. (2015) 'A review of body composition measurement in the assessment of health'. Topics in Clinical Nutrition, 30 (1). https://doi.org/10.1097/TIN.0000000000000017

 

Marcos-Pardo, PJ;Gonzalez-Galvez, N;Lopez-Vivancos, A;Espeso-Garcia, A;Martinez-Aranda, LM;Gea-Garcia, GM;Orquin-Castrillon, FJ;Carbonell-Baeza, A;Jimenez-Garcia, JD;Velazquez-Diaz, D;Cadenas-Sanchez, C;Isidori, E;Fossati, C;Pigozzi, F;Rum, L;Norton, C;Tierney, A;Abelkalns, I;Klempere-Sipjagina, A;Porozovs, J;Hannola, H;Niemisalo, N;Hokka, L;Jimenez-Pavon, D;Vaquero-Cristobal, R (2021) 'Sarcopenia, Diet, Physical Activity and Obesity in European Middle-Aged and Older Adults: The LifeAge Study'. Nutrients, 13 . https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13010008