Dariush Mozaffarian

Education

Mozaffarian received his B.S. in biology from Stanford University, his M.P.H. from the University of Washington, his M.D. from Columbia University, and his doctorate in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Academic career

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. On July 1, 2014, he became the dean of Tufts University's Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Previously he had been 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.

Research

Mozaffarian is the author of more than 200 scientific papers on topics such as risk factors for heart disease and stroke. In 2010, he served as the chair of the Global Burden of Disease's Nutrition and Chronic Diseases Expert Group. 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. In 2014, Mozaffarian co-authored a controversial meta-analysis pertaining to the association between saturated fat consumption and risk of heart disease. 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." In 2015, Mozaffarian published a study which found that sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was responsible for 184,000 deaths worldwide each year.