Lydia Afman

Lydia Afman is a Full Professor at the Department of Nutrition, Metabolism and Genomics, within the College of Human and Aquatic Life Sciences (VLAG) at Wageningen University & Research. Her research focuses on understanding metabolic pathways and dietary interventions to improve metabolic health, particularly in obesity and insulin resistance. She leads multiple active PhD projects and collaborates internationally on studies involving personalized nutrition, gut microbiota, and inflammatory resilience.

Her work integrates metabolomics, transcriptomics, and clinical trials to explore how nutrients influence metabolic flexibility and chronic disease risk. Notable projects include the PERSON study on personalized dietary optimization and the Graandioos study on whole-grain wheat interventions. She has supervised 13 PhD candidates, many investigating mechanisms linking diet to adipose tissue biology, vascular function, and immune responses.

Key research themes include insulin resistance phenotyping, prebiotic effects on gut microbiota, and computational models for metabolic resilience. Her contributions span over 92 peer-reviewed articles, emphasizing translational research to bridge nutrition science and clinical practice.