One of Epidemiology’s newest faculty hires, Dr. Jinying Zhao, had a publication featured on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s news mentions. Her featured publication titled “Processed meat, but not unprocessed red meat, is inversely associated with leukocyte telomere length in the Strong Heart family study” was published in The Journal of Nutrition and reports new evidence that consumption of processed meat— such as sausage, hot dogs, lunch meat, and canned meat— may shorten telomeres and raise a person’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions. Telomeres function to protect our chromosomes from damage, and the shortening of these have been linked to increased disease risk. The findings were based on a study done of 2,846 American Indians in the Strong Heart Study.