Dariush Mozaffarian | |
---|---|
Born | Portland, Maine | August 19, 1969
Nationality | American Iranian |
Education | |
Awards | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | nutrition, epidemiology, medicine, public health research |
Institutions |
Dariush Mozaffarian (born August 19, 1969) is a cardiologist, Jean Mayer Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable. Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Some of his areas of interest include healthy diet patterns, nutritional biomarkers, Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare, nutrition innovation and entrepreneurship, and food policy. He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally, he has served in numerous advisory roles, and his work has been featured in an array of media outlets.
Mozaffarian received a BS in biological sciences at Stanford University (Phi Beta Kappa) and MD at Columbia University (Alpha Omega Alpha). He took his residency at Stanford, and was a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Washington, where he also received his MPH. He earned a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard. [4]
Mozaffarian joined the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in 2006, where he later founded the school's program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology. From 2004 to 2007, he served as an adjunct faculty member at the Tufts University School of Medicine. Mozaffarian was an associate professor at HSPH, as well as an associate professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. [5]
On July 1, 2014, Mozaffarian became the Dean of Tufts University's Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. [6] He is the Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition, and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. [7]
Mozaffarian is the author of over 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce these burdens in the US and globally. [7] Mozaffarian is the principal investigator of the Global Dietary Database, [8] and Food-PRICE (Policy Review and Intervention Cost-Effectiveness). [9] As well, he was selected to serve on advisory boards for the US and Canadian governments, American Heart Association, World Health Organization, and the United Nations. [7]
In 2011, Mozaffarian published a study which found that the quality of one's diet is strongly associated with weight gain. The study also found that out of all the foods examined, potato chips were most strongly associated with weight gain. [10] [11] In 2014, Mozaffarian co-authored a controversial meta-analysis pertaining to the association between saturated fat consumption and risk of heart disease. [12] Despite the meta-analysis's conclusion that the evidence "does not clearly support guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats," Mozaffarian told Science Insider that "Personally, I think the results suggest that fish and vegetable oils should be encouraged." [13] In a 2018 paper published in the BMJ, Mozaffarian and co-author Nita G. Forouhi argued that "Nutrition science has often been criticized as unreliable, but has made vital contributions to human health" and that going forward, "All stakeholders, including the food industry, must be part of a collective effort to solve the tremendous global challenge of nutrition and health." [14]
In 2016, Thomson Reuters named Mozaffarian as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. [1] In 2018, Mozaffarian was awarded the Chanchlani Global Health Research Award by McMaster University. [2] That same year, he was awarded the Walker Prize by the Museum of Science, Boston [3] and was a Presidential Symposium Speaker for the American Society for Nutrition. [15]
Mozaffarian has been active in the Friedman School's Public Impact Initiatives, including Food is Medicine, and has participated in the bipartisan sponsored working group. [16] [17]
In January 2018, while on Capitol Hill to show his support for the launch of a Food Is Medicine Working Group within Congress’s House Hunger Caucus, he stated, “As a cardiologist, I’ve been thinking about food—and how food is missing from the health-care system—for twenty years now.....One in four dollars in the federal budget is spent on health care. One in five dollars in the entire U.S. economy is spent on health care, and that is only going to go up until we address food." [16]
Dr. Mozaffarian has brought together several national coalitions to address major scientific and policy issues around food, nutrition, and agriculture, such as the 50th Anniversary of the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health, the white paper and coalition on Strengthening Federal Nutrition Research; and diverse nonprofits and businesses in the Food & Nutrition Innovation Council. He has worked closely with Congress and other stakeholders to help advance bipartisan priorities around advancing science and innovation, improving nutrition security, reducing diet-related healthcare expenditures, and addressing corresponding racial, income, and geographic-related inequities. [18]
Mozaffarian and his wife have three children together. He also trains as a Fourth Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. [7]
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits and traditional food typical of southern Spain, southern Italy, and Crete, and formulated in the early 1960s. It is distinct from Mediterranean cuisine, which covers the actual cuisines of the Mediterranean countries. While inspired by a specific time and place, the "Mediterranean diet" was later refined based on the results of multiple scientific studies.
A multivitamin is a preparation intended to serve as a dietary supplement with vitamins, dietary minerals, and other nutritional elements. Such preparations are available in the form of tablets, capsules, pastilles, powders, liquids, or injectable formulations. Other than injectable formulations, which are only available and administered under medical supervision, multivitamins are recognized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission as a category of food.
The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, the nation's first graduate training program in population health, which was founded in 1913 and then became the Harvard School of Public Health in 1922.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University brings together biomedical, nutritional, clinical, social, and behavioral scientists to conduct research, educational, and community service programs in the field of human nutrition. Founded in 1981, the school's mission is to generate trusted science, educate future leaders, and produce real world impact in nutrition science and policy. The Friedman School is one of the eight schools that currently comprise Tufts University. Although originally split between the university's Medford/Somerville campus and the health sciences campus in Boston, almost all of the school's facilities and programs now share the health sciences campus with the School of Medicine and the School of Dental Medicine. The Jaharis Family Center for Biomedical and Nutrition Research, which opened in 2002, houses most of the nutrition school. The school currently enrolls over 200 masters and doctoral students.
Nutritional science is the science that studies the physiological process of nutrition, interpreting the nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism.
Walter C. Willett is an American physician and nutrition researcher. He is the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was the chair of its department of nutrition from 1991 to 2017. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Miguel Ángel Martínez-González is a Spanish medical doctor, epidemiologist, professor, and nutrition researcher He has been often a visiting scholar at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are healthy or who are at risk for chronic disease but do not currently have chronic disease. The Guidelines are published every five years by the US Department of Agriculture, together with the US Department of Health and Human Services. Notably, the most recent ninth edition for 2020–25 includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months. In addition to the Dietary Guidelines per se, there are additional tools for assessing diet and nutrition, including the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which can be used to assess the quality of a given selection of foods in the context of the Dietary Guidelines. Also provided are additional explanations regarding customization of the Guidelines to individual eating preferences, application of the Guidelines during pregnancy and infancy, the USDA Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review, information about the Nutrition Communicators Network and the MyPlate initiative, information from the National Academies about redesigning the process by which the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are created, and information about dietary guidelines from other nations.
Lifestyle medicine (LM) is a branch of medicine focused on preventive healthcare and self-care dealing with prevention, research, education, and treatment of disorders caused by lifestyle factors and preventable causes of death such as nutrition, physical inactivity, chronic stress, and self-destructive behaviors including the consumption of tobacco products and drug or alcohol abuse. The goal of LM is to improve individuals' health and wellbeing by applying the 6 pillars of lifestyle medicine (nutrition, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and positive social connection) to prevent chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity. By focusing on these 6 areas to improve health, LM can prevent 80% of chronic illnesses and non-communicable diseases (NCD).
MyPlate is the current nutrition guide published by the United States Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, and serves as a recommendation based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It replaced the USDA's MyPyramid guide on June 2, 2011, ending 19 years of USDA food pyramid diagrams. MyPlate is displayed on food packaging and used in nutrition education in the United States. The graphic depicts a place setting with a plate and glass divided into five food groups that are recommended parts of a healthy diet. This dietary recommendation combines an organized amount of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. It is designed as a guideline for Americans to base their plate around in order to make educated food choices. ChooseMyPlate.gov shows individuals the variety of these 5 subgroups based on their activity levels and personal characteristics.
Patrick Webb is the Alexander McFarlane Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. He was Dean for Academic Affairs from 2005 to 2014.
The Africa/Harvard School of Public Health Partnership for Cohort Research and Training launched in 2008, is a collaborative research project led by Principal Investigators, Dr. Hans-Olov Adami and Dr. Michelle D. Holmes. Together with research scientists, Dr. Shona Dalal and Dr. Todd G. Reid, this team represents the Harvard Coordinating Site of the Partnership with colleagues from five institutions in Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The Africa/HSPH PaCT project plans on investigating the association of lifestyle factors and chronic disease risk in sub- Saharan Africa, through a large epidemiological cohort study that will include approximately 500,000 participants. Africa/HSPH PaCT is the first and largest cohort study conducted in sub-saharan Africa to employ mobile phone technology to follow participants and collect data. Africa/HSPH PaCT will also provide the infrastructure for capacity-building and for training a new generation of health professionals.
The Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), located in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six human nutrition research centers in the United States supported by the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service. The goal of the HNRCA, which is managed by Tufts University, is to explore the relationship between nutrition, physical activity, and healthy and active aging.
The Chanchlani Global Health Research Award is a Canadian health sciences award that recognizes a world leading scholar in the area of Global Health. Each year a discipline within Global Health is chosen by the internal review committee at McMaster University. The review committee then selects the leading researcher based on interview and impact in the field. The award recipient receives a monetary prize of $5,000 and opportunity to present their research findings to researchers and students.
Alice Hinda Lichtenstein is an American professor and researcher in nutrition and heart disease. In 2006, Shape magazine named Lichtenstein one of ten "Women Who Shaped the World". In 2019, Tamar Haspel called her a "grande dame of nutrition."
PREDIMED was a large Spanish primary prevention trial which included 7,447 Spanish participants who were at high risk for cardiovascular disease, but otherwise healthy. They were randomly assigned to receive interventions with intensive education to one of three diets:
Nita Gandhi Forouhi is a British physician and academic, specialising in nutrition and epidemiology. She is Professor of Population Health and Nutrition at the University of Cambridge, the programme leader of the nutritional epidemiology programme of its MRC Epidemiology Unit, and an honorary consultant public health physician with Public Health England.
William Alan Masters is an American economist, teaching and conducting research on agricultural economics and food policy in the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University, where he also has a secondary appointment in the Department of Economics.
Johanna T. Dwyer is an American nutrition scientist and dietitian. She is a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements and director of the Frances Stern Nutrition Center at Tufts Medical Center. Dwyer is a professor of nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.