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Most PhD students don't have much time to spend in the kitchen, instead focusing on their research, and eating as a necessity.

But Regina Belski spent a lot of time there, baking new foods.

Dr Belski, a dietitian, was not avoiding her studies but developing a range of lupin-enriched foods to help people lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Her study, supervised by UWA 's renowned medical nutrition trio, Research Professor Jonathan Hodgson, Professor Trevor Mori and Winthrop Professor Ian Puddey, also suggested that lupin flour might be good for those suffering from type 2 diabetes.

Dr Belski, who graduated with her PhD earlier this year, was recently one of 16 national winners of the annual Federal- Government-sponsored Fresh Science awards in Melbourne.

"As a dietitian, I had become so tired of telling people what they should not be eating," Dr Belski said "It was refreshing to be able to tell people what they should be eating.

"A lot of research involves rats and test tubes, but I was lucky: mine involved food and people, the two things I love."

We can lower our risk of heart disease significantly just by using flour containing 40 per cent lupin beans in the place of conventional wholemeal flour.

Over the course of a year, Dr Belski and her supervisors monitored more than 100 overweight, but otherwise healthy, Western Australian men and women to whom they provided everyday foods made either with wholemeal flour or incorporating lupin flour.

"Consuming lupin flour lowered blood pressure and reduced the risk of heart disease," Dr Belski said.

About 80 per cent of the world's commercial lupin crop is produced in Western Australia where it conditions the soil and is sold for livestock feed.

Dr Belski said there had been renewed interest in using lupin flour in regular foods, because of its unique high protein, high fibre composition and its ability to be incorporated easily into typical food products such as bread.

Those taking part in the study were put on a weight loss diet and split into two groups. For a year, one group ate food incorporating the 40 per cent lupin flour, and the other foods made solely with wholemeal flour. The food provided to participants during the study included bread, pasta and biscuits. The researchers found that while both the lupin group and the wholemeal group lost similar amounts of weight, the lupin group displayed bigger improvements in several heart disease risk factors.

"So simply consuming foods incorporating lupin flour can improve heart health in overweight people who are at higher risk of heart disease," Dr Belski said.

Dr Belski was sought by Melbourne's Victoria University where she is now developing and teaching a new Master of Science in dietetics course, and continuing her research into nutritional management of chronic health conditions.

Published in UWA News , 25 July 2011