About dr. K.A.C. (Kirsten) Berk
Introduction
Dr. Kirsten A.C. Berk is an Assistant Professor and registered dietitian. Her research ambition is to unravel the potential of food as medicine, and to provide medical practitioners with mechanistic evidence of how specific foods can be used as precision tools to prevent and treat disease. Dr. Berk earned her PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam on the topic of weight loss and weight loss maintenance in people with type 2 diabetes. Her current research projects include dietary intervention studies (lifestyle interventions, Mediterranean diet, very low-calorie diet, ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting) in people with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. She is interested in the effects of these diets on cardiovascular outcomes, lipoprotein metabolism, aging biomarkers and nutritional status. Moreover, she studies the efficiency of a combination of face-to-face and e-health nutritional care (‘blended care’) for individuals with obesity or type 2 diabetes, using her self-developed U-diet app.
She is currently member of the Nutrition Committee of the Dutch Health Council. As a dietitian specializing in diabetes, Dr. Berk was chairperson of the Diabetes and Nutrition Organization (member of the Dutch Diabetes Federation) for several years.
Field(s) of expertise
Obesity
Nutrition (metabolic fasting, very low-calorie diet, ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting)
e-health
Cardiovascular risk
Education and career
Dr Berk graduated cum laude from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, majoring in Nutrition and Dietetics. She subsequently obtained her PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam, under the supervision of Prof. Eric Sijbrands and Prof. Jan van Busschbach. Link to thesis ‘Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Type 2 Diabetes’: https://reader.ogc.nl/03d2c905-aa8a-46aa-808a-9449b4932f25.epub/
She has been working as a dietitian in the diabetes team at Erasmus MC since 2007 and completed her PhD part-time alongside her clinical work. She then became a postdoctoral researcher on her own funds and since 2023 has been appointed assistant professor at the Department of Internal Medicine at Erasmus MC. Here she works closely with leading researchers in the research theme “Vascular Aging”.
Publications
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Click here to see a list of publications by this researcher: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Berk+KA&sort=date Link to external websites: https://pure.eur.nl/en/persons/kirsten-berk https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kirsten-Berk Projects: - Food Prescription Program in type 2 diabetes and low socioeconomic status: effect of free healthy plantbased foodboxes - E-health blended with face-to-face dietetic care in type 2 diabetes (eDIET trial) - Intermittent fasting in patients with type 2 diabetes (eTIMED trial) - Use of monomeric and oligomeric flavanols in the dietary management of patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria (FLAVA trial) - Effect of diet on Lp(a), fatty acids and bile acids - seaweed supplementation in type 2 diabetes and obesity - Ketogenic diet in people with acromegalia - Ketogenic diet in people with liver adenomas - Mediterranean diet vs. Weight loss medication in type 2 diabetes (MEDFAST trial) - Healthy nutrition in people with migraine and low socioeconomic status
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Teaching activities
Dr. Berk supervises 4 PhD students and has supervised many bachelor and master students in the field of nutrition. In her role as coordinator of the knowledge domain ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ of the Erasmus MC medical bachelor curriculum, she develops, coordinates and teaches classes about nutrition and lifestyle. Additionally, she is founder of the national committee ‘nutrition and lifestyle in the medical curriculum’, working together with all Dutch medical faculties to increase and improve nutritional education in the medical curriculum. Internationally, she is collaborating within the Nutrition Education in Medical Schools (NEMS) Project of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN).
Other positions
Dr. Berk is board member of the Nutrition Committee of the Dutch Health Council Since 2020, contributing to the development of a diversity of nutritional guidelines, such as the Dutch Dietary Guidelines for people with T2D. She is also member of the guideline committee of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) on dietary advice during GLP-1 medication use in T2D. Moreover, she is associate Editor of Clinical Nutrition ESPEN, a journal of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. She has been invited lecturer for >50 (inter)national conferences and is a member of the scientific committee of the conference of the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) in 2027.
Scholarships, grants, and awards
Dr. Berk received various personal grants and awards for her research, including a prestigious Erasmus MC fellowship for her research on ketogenic diet, an innovation grant of the Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation for research on low-calorie diets in type 2 diabetes, and a fellowship of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT food) and an EIT Global Food Venture Award for her work on eHealth in type 2 diabetes.
