Boston DO-HEALTH

In December 2011, the Coordinator (Heike Bischoff-Ferrari) travelled to Boston to discuss the final protocol with 3 key advisors/collaborators of DO-HEALTH (Prof. Bess Dawson-Hughes, Prof. Walter Willett, Prof. JoAnn Manson) and the DO-HEALTH head biostatistican (Prof. E. John Orav — see Coordinating Team).

Prof. Bess Dawson-Hughes, MD 

Director, Bone and Mineral Laboratory, Human Nutrition Research Centre on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, USA.

Prof. Dawson-Hughes is the current Secretariat General of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), will support DO-HEALTH with her extensive experience in fall and fracture prevention at older age, vitamin D, calcium, diet evaluation, and acid load analyses. Prof. Dawson-Hughes is a longstanding collaborator of Prof. Bischoff-Ferrari since 2002 and Prof. Bischoff-Ferrari is a visiting Scientist at the Human Research Centre on Aging and Nutrition at Tufts University. Prof. Dawson-Hughes collaborated on all pilot studies of DO-HEALTH.

Prof. Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH

Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and Chair, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA

Prof. Walter Willett is the PI of the Nurses Health Study, created and validated the most widely used food frequency questionnaire in the US, and his textbook on nutritional epidemiology is the classic tool used worldwide to teach diet evaluation methodology and the relation between diet and long-term health and disease. Heike Bischoff-Ferrari was a doctoral student of Prof. Willett from 2002 to 2008, and Prof. Willett collaborated on several of the pilot studies of DO-HEALTH. Prof. Willett will support DO-HEALTH with his large expertise on nutrition assessment, his expertise in omega-3 fats and vitamin D and the impact of these nutrients on cardio-vascular and general health.

Prof. JoAnn E. Manson, MD

Chief of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.

Prof. Manson is a Co-Investigator of the WHI trial and PI of the VITAL trial. She will support DO-HEALTH with her expertise in the design and conduct of large clinical trials, cardiovascular health, cancer, diabetes, and nutrition.