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 Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was a series of clinical studies initiated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1991, to address major health issues causing morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women. It consisted of three clinical trials (CT) and an observational study (OS). In particular, randomized controlled trials were designed and funded that addressed cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two founding members of Mass General Brigham, the largest healthcare provider in Massachusetts. Robert Higgins, MD, MSHA serves as the hospital's current president.
Megavitamin therapy is the use of large doses of vitamins, often many times greater than the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) in the attempt to prevent or treat diseases. Megavitamin therapy is typically used in alternative medicine by practitioners who call their approach orthomolecular medicine. Vitamins are useful in preventing and treating illnesses specifically associated with dietary vitamin shortfalls, but the conclusions of medical research are that the broad claims of disease treatment by advocates of megavitamin therapy are unsubstantiated by the available evidence. It is generally accepted that doses of any vitamin greatly in excess of nutritional requirements will result either in toxicity or in the excess simply being metabolised; thus evidence in favour of vitamin supplementation supports only doses in the normal range. Critics have described some aspects of orthomolecular medicine as food faddism or even quackery. Research on nutrient supplementation in general suggests that some nutritional supplements might be beneficial, and that others might be harmful; several specific nutritional therapies are associated with an increased likelihood of the condition they are meant to prevent.
Paul M. Ridker is a cardiovascular epidemiologist and biomedical researcher. He is currently the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he directs the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention. Ridker also holds an appointment as Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The Nurses' Health Study is a series of prospective studies that examine epidemiology and the long-term effects of nutrition, hormones, environment, and nurses' work-life on health and disease development. The studies have been among the largest investigations into risk factors for major chronic diseases ever conducted. The Nurses' Health Studies have led to many insights on health and well-being, including cancer prevention, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. They have included clinicians, epidemiologists, and statisticians at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and several Harvard-affiliated hospitals, including Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Children's Hospital Boston, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Elizabeth Nabel is an American cardiologist and Executive Vice President of Strategy at ModeX Therapeutics and OPKO Health. Prior to this role, she served as President of Brigham Health and its Brigham and Women's Hospital, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Howard Lund Judd was an American physician and medical researcher. He specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology, and contributed significant research to the field of women's health, in particular about menopause and hormone replacement therapy.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. Effects of menopause can include symptoms such as hot flashes, accelerated skin aging, vaginal dryness, decreased muscle mass, and complications such as osteoporosis, sexual dysfunction, and vaginal atrophy. They are mostly caused by low levels of female sex hormones that occur during menopause.
Centrum is an American brand of multivitamins produced by Haleon. It was previously owned by Pfizer and GSK.
Yvette Roubideaux is an American doctor and public health administrator. She is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota.
Frank B. Hu is a Chinese American nutrition and diabetes researcher. He is Chair of the Department of Nutrition and the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
Paula Adina Johnson is an American cardiologist and the current president of Wellesley College. She is the first Black woman to serve in this role. The first Black graduate of Wellesley College came in the year 1887, and 129 years later President Johnson became the first Black leader. Prior to her role as president of Wellesley, Johnson founded and served as the inaugural executive director of the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health & Gender Biology, as well as Chief of the Division of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Johnson was the Grace A. Young Family Professor of Medicine in the field of women's health, an endowed professorship named in honor of her mother, at Harvard Medical School. She was also Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been featured as a national leader in medicine by the National Library of Medicine.
Simin Liu is an American physician researcher. He holds leadership positions internationally in the research of nutrition, genetics, epidemiology, and environmental and biological influences of complex diseases related to cardiometabolic health in diverse population. His research team has uncovered new mechanisms and risk-factors as well as developed research frameworks for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Liu's laboratory conducts research mainly in the United States, though the group has had research collaborations, teaching, and service activities in six of the Seven Continents.
Elizabeth Louise Barrett-Connor was Chief of the Division of Epidemiology and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego. She investigated the role of hormones in pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.
Cuilin Zhang is a Chinese-American epidemiologist and physician-scientist researching the roles of genetic and environmental factors in the pathogenesis of gestational diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and obesity and health consequences of these complications. Zhang is a senior investigator and acting chief of the epidemiology branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Michelle Asha Albert is an American physician who is the Walter A. Haas Lucie-Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Albert is director of the UCSF Center for the Study of Adversity and Cardiovascular Disease. She is president of the American Heart Association. She served as the president of the Association of Black Cardiologists in 2020–2022 and as president of the Association of University Cardiologists (2021–2022). Albert is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Investigators and the Association of American Physicians.
Monica Bertagnolli is an American surgical oncologist and the 17th director of the National Institutes of Health. She previously served as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to her governmental positions, she worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and was the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Julie Elizabeth Buring is an American epidemiologist and professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Marcia L. Stefanick is a Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Director of the Stanford Women's Health and Sex Differences in Medicine Center. Stefanick’s research investigates the role of lifestyle, particularly exercise, diet, weight control, and menopausal hormone therapy, on chronic disease prevention. Her major focus is heart disease, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and dementia.
