Valerie L. Darcey, PhD, MS, RD

😅..time to officially dish out 🍽 the news! Super stoked to announce my appointment as a Stadtman Tenure Track Investigator @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH where I'll be studying the impact of diet & metabolism on human neurochemistry! 🍔🍦🥗🧠 Hiring @ all levels! niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/st…

@KevinH_PhD 🥺Kevin, Thank you... For all of your invaluable contributions to the field & for world-class training on being a scientist. Your presence (&ideas!) will be missed around here!! Keeping your old office ready & waiting if you return 😉

After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology. Lately, I’ve focused on unravelling the reasons why diets high in ultra-processed food are linked to epidemic proportions of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. Our research leads the world on this topic. Given recent bipartisan goals to prevent diet-related chronic diseases, and new agency leadership professing to prioritize scientific investigation of ultra-processed foods, I had hoped to expand our research program with ambitious plans to more rapidly and efficiently determine how our food is likely making Americans chronically sick. Unfortunately, recent events have made me question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science. Specifically, I experienced censorship in the reporting of our research because of agency concerns that it did not appear to fully support preconceived narratives of my agency’s leadership about ultra-processed food addiction. I was hoping this was an aberration. So, weeks ago I wrote to my agency’s leadership expressing my concerns and requested time to discuss these issues, but I never received a response. Without any reassurance there wouldn’t be continued censorship or meddling in our research, I felt compelled to accept early retirement to preserve health insurance for my family. (Resigning later in protest of any future meddling or censorship would result in losing that benefit.) Due to very tight deadlines to make this decision, I don’t yet have plans for my future career. The NIH has been a wonderful place because it allows scientists to take risks, form unique collaborations, and do studies difficult to conduct elsewhere. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and I’m fortunate to have had such wonderful colleagues and scientific collaborators. I hope to someday return to government service and lead a research program that will continue to provide gold-standard science to make Americans healthy.

Did you miss the 2024 NIH Research Festival last week? From the @NIH Distinguished Scholars Symposium to the 17th Annual Philip S. Chen Jr. Lecture given by Dr. Stephen Whitehead, go here to catch up on what you may have missed: bit.ly/4gW8LXJ #NIH_IRP

@davidbsarwer @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH David!! 😄😄😄 Yes! When this @Penn undergrad got her start as a work-study student in clinical research w/ you all @ the Center for Weight & Eating Disorders! shout out to @DrGaryFoster for the clutch early mentorship!! 💫

@vdarcey @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH Congratulations, Valerie. Can I honestly say “I knew you when….”

😅..time to officially dish out 🍽 the news! Super stoked to announce my appointment as a Stadtman Tenure Track Investigator @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH where I'll be studying the impact of diet & metabolism on human neurochemistry! 🍔🍦🥗🧠 Hiring @ all levels! niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/st…

@joshuagowin @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH In the days of DCMA chapter for @SfNtweets ! When this PhD student was picking your brain about post-doc-ing @IRPatNIH ! 😄😄😄 Tx Josh!!

@vdarcey @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH Happy to say I knew you way back when :) congrats!

@neubadah @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH 😆

@vdarcey @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH I heard it first! Haha congratulations again!!

@kavyadevrusso 💛💛💛💛 😊

Highly recommend if you're looking for a postbac or postdoc position! Val is a brilliant scientist with an amazing, unique background in both neuro and nutrition, and she was a wonderful mentor to me when I was a postbac

@kylesburger @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH 😂

@vdarcey @NIDDKgov @IRPatNIH WHAT?!?!?!?! J/K so happy for you!!!

Curious about keto diets and sleep? Scientists at NIDDK want to know if an investigational dietary supplement impacts calorie burn during sleep. Call the NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment at 866-444-1134. Refer to study #001690-DK. go.nih.gov/w4TAEXE

AND @Dr_Paulevj ! ☺️

/FIN! 🧠😃 Huge thanks to our (mostly not on this platform) team! @DrChung_PEndo @CourvillePhd @nutrineuroizzy @AlexInMed et al!

Our results do NOT discount the experience of folks who have trouble controlling their intake of ultraprocessed products high in fat+sugar. Rather, they call into question the narrative that illicit-drug-like postingestive dopamine responses promote excess ultraprocessed intake.

So, turns out, that in our large (n=50) sample, using same PET methods that measure the effect of drugs of abuse on 🧠dopamine, we see a small, highly variable effect of ultraprocessed fat+sugar in the gut that's more on par with, say, *perhaps*, nicotine, not psychostimulants.

Is it true that gut-brain signals after consuming ultra-processed foods high in fat+sugar cause exaggerated dopamine release in human brain reward regions akin to what you'd expect from addictive drugs?? The answer may surprise you!!💡🧠 Our latest work from @KevinH_PhD 's lab!

but (2) the more postingestive dopamine that was released to the milkshake, the more calories people ate specifically from the high-fat, high-sugar cookies that were on offer at an ad libitum meal test on their last inpatient day! 🍪 🍽️

We also explore correlates of the postingestive dopamine response and found that not only was there (1) more dopamine released to postingestive milkshake signals if there was greater subjective hunger (after a standardized overnight fast) ...

We explored what features could distinguish folks who showed the expected postingestive striatal response from those who didn't... SPOILER: Not much. Not even their glycemic responses. ("Responders" DID rate the milkshake as ⬆️ pleasant & wanted more of it though 😅)

There WAS quite a lot of variability in the postingestive striatal dopamine response to the milkshake! Buuuuuuuuuuut, surprisingly, that variability was not related to adiposity (BMI or %body fat).

Surprisingly, postingestive D2BP was not significantly different from fasting D2BP... suggesting that the presence of this ultraprocessed sugar+fat shake in the gut was more like... weak sauce... to striatal dopamine.

we expected to see a ⬇️ in striatal dopamine D2 receptor binding potential (D2BP) as measured by [11C]raclopride in the postingestive state compared to fasting... i.e., dopamine release!

So, we designed a controlled inpatient feeding study to measure postingestive dopamine response to milkshake w/PET neuroimaging methods typically used to measure dopamine effect of drugs of abuse in 50 young healthy adults over a wide range in BMI (20-45 kg/m2) and...