London 2012 research has a growing global impact

My colleagues from our Centre for Oral Health and Performance (COHP) and I had a busy three days at the IOC conference, held in Monaco in March. The meeting is triennial and attracts 1,200 delegates as the leading conference on prevention of injury and illness in sport. We were part of the faculty and invited to present a symposium, a workshop and a research poster.

Overall, it was highly successful. Our presentations were well received and we also recorded a podcast for the British Journal of Sport and Exercise Medicine at the conference to be broadcasted later.

Importantly, it became apparent that our research is being cited with increasing frequency by the sport and exercise medicine and science communities. One stunning example occurred during the plenary keynote presentation by Dr Cindy Chang, who was chief medical officer to the USA Olympic team at the London 2012 games. In her presentation, Dr Chang addressed how she translates research into her medical screening procedures. She presented two slides highlighting how our London 2012 research had changed her screening to include oral health.

It was also a pleasure to present in Rotterdam in March at the Erasmus Medical Centre. The Netherlands Olympic Committee have also developed a strong interest in oral health screening following our London 2012 study and their Chief Medical Officer, Dr Cees-rein Van den Hoogenband, was very generous in promoting the significance of the research. Many thanks to Professor Eppo Wolvius for the invitation to the stunning Erasmus MC and who is taking forward this research in the Netherlands.

We are meanwhile busy analysing the large data set that Dr Julie Gallagher has collected from UK Olympic teams and professional sport and the findings are certainly very interesting. We will present some of these at our upcoming event:

Nutrition, Oral Health and Performance Symposium

Join us on 28 July 2017 for this one-day event which brings together cutting-edge knowledge in the key fields of sport nutrition, performance and oral health to develop innovations for the future.

We have a stellar line-up of speakers including the world leaders in sport nutrition, Dr Kevin Currell (English Institute of Sport), Prof. Ron Maugham (St. Andrew’s University and IOC) and Dr Dan Kings (Aspetar, Doha); and in eating disorders, Dr Anna Katerina Melin (University of Copenhagen).

Panellists include 2.34h marathoner and Parkrun Comms Executive Tom Fairbrother who has widely shared his own story about his eating disorder and Dr Peter Fine, director of our CPD programme in Sports Dentistry.

We have timed the symposium just before the IAAF World Athletics Championships in London so come an enjoy both!