Dr. Terry Graham

A photograph of Dr. Terry Graham.
Professor Emeritus
Email: 
terrygra@uoguelph.ca

From the beginning of my studies I was fascinated by physiology and metabolism.  For me, this area integrated anatomy and biochemistry and made all of the natural sciences come together in an understanding of the human body.  I did my graduate work in physiology at Queen's University in various aspect of muscle metabolism and then was a postdoctoral fellow with Bengt Saltin in Copenhagen.  Subsequently I came to Guelph in 1976 and have spent my career here.  My 'traditional' area of investigation is the regulation of muscle glycogen and lactate metabolism.  I have explored many other topics during my career, but always come back to carbohydrate homeostasis.  At Guelph I realized that the science discipline that my work was missing was nutrition and progressively brought more and more aspects of this into my investigations.  I have come to appreciate the incredible degree of interaction between physical activity and nutrition and am convinced that one can not truly understand or study one without the other.  Traditionally this has been thought to apply mainly to the nutritional habits of elite athletes.  Now it is apparent that the interactions are critical to every person and are more important to sedentary people than to athletes.  Muscle is a dominant tissue in whole body metabolism and a single bout of exercise can dramatically alter the metabolic responses to a meal and these in turn impact on our longterm health.  Nutrition and physical activity are intimately linked to many of our critical health care issues.

B.A. - Queens University
BPHE - Queens University
M.Sc. - Queens University
Ph.D. - Queens University

Dr. Graham's research has had an extensive program examining the impact of caffeine or coffee ingestion on carbohydrate metabolism and insulin sensitivity.  However, now it is focused on muscle glycogen with a particular focus on the roles of regulatory proteins that are associated with the glycogen granules.  This critical store of carbohydrate exists in highly organized granules in specific locations within the cell.  There is a large group of proteins/enzymes that bind to the granule and are vital to the regulation.  The nature of these actions are very likely to be key to carbohydrate regulation in not only exercise, but in health and disease states.  Due to his retirement in 2013, Dr. Graham will not be accepting anymore students.

Beaudoin M-S, Allen B, Massetti G, Sullivan PJ, Graham TE.  Caffeine Ingestion Impairs Insulin Sensitivity in a Dose-Dependent Fashion, in Both Men and Women.  Appl. Phys. Nutr. Metab.  2013; 38(2):140-7.  https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2012-0201

Beaudoin, M-S, Graham TE.  Methylxanthines and Human Health:  Epidemiological and Experimental Evidence.  In Methylxanthines.  Handbook for Experimental Pharmacology. Edited by B Fredholm.  Springer.  2011; (200):509-48.  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-13443-2_21


James JE, Bloomer RJ, Cox G, Davis J-K, Desbrow B, Graham T.  Caffeine and Physical Performance.  Journal of Caffeine Research.  2011; 1(3):145-51.  https://doi.org/10.1089/jcr.2011.1210

Roberts KT, Cui SW, Chang YH, Ng PKW, Graham T.  The Influence of Fenugreek Gum and Extrusion Modified Fenugreek Gum on Bread.  Food Hydrocolloids.  2012; 26: 350-8.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2011.02.030

Ooi TC, Robinson L, Graham T, Kolovou GD, Mikhailidis DP, Lairon D.  Proposing a ‘Lipemic Index’ as a Nutritional and Research Tool.  Curr. Vasc. Pharmacol.  2011; 9:313-17.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21314625/

Beaudoin M-S, Robinson LE, Graham TE.  Oral Lipid Challenge and Caffeinated Coffee Additively Decrease Glucose Tolerance in Healthy Males.  J. Nutr.  2011; 141:574-81.  https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.110.132761

Turnbull J, Girard J-M, Pencea N, Zhao X, Graham TE, Wang P, Ackerley CA, Minassian BA.  Lafora Bodies in Skeletal Muscle are Fibre Type Specific.  Neurology.  2011; 76:1674-6.  https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0b013e318219faf6