Dariush Mozaffarian's research while affiliated with New York University and other places

Publications (921)

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We investigated the extent of alignment between ‘healthiness’ defined by a food classification system that classifies foods and beverages primarily by their nutrient composition, the Health Star Rating (HSR) and a system that considers only the degree of processing of the product, the NOVA classification system. We used data for 25 486 products con...
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Objective Corporate sustainability assessment tools are increasingly used to evaluate company performance on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria. Given the growing burden of diet-related disease and nutrition-related business risks, it is important to understand the scope of nutrition-related ESG data currently available. This stud...
Article
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Background Few simulation models have incorporated the interplay of diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease (CVD); their upstream lifestyle and biological risk factors; and their downstream effects on health disparities and economic consequences. Methods We developed and validated a US Diabetes, Obesity, Cardiovascular Disease Microsimulatio...
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Incomplete understanding of the multiple mechanisms underlying the link between ultra-processed foods and cardiometabolic health should not be an excuse for inaction argue Mathilde Touvier and colleagues
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Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are associated with cardiometabolic diseases and social inequities. For most nations, recent estimates and trends of intake are not available; nor variation by education or urbanicity. We investigated SSB intakes among adults between 1990 and 2018 in 185 countries, stratified subnationally by age, sex, education, an...
Article
Background: Produce prescriptions may improve cardiometabolic health by increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption and food insecurity yet impacts on clinical outcomes and health status have not been evaluated in large, multisite evaluations. Methods: This multisite, pre- and post-evaluation used individual-level data from 22 produce presc...
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Introduction The private sector plays a critical role in influencing food choices and health outcomes of consumers. Among private sector actors, investors are a powerful yet underutilised stakeholder for driving scalable public health impact. There are systems to facilitate investors’ involvement, notably environmental, social and governance (ESG)...
Article
Background: Comprising nearly 35% of brain lipids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are essential for optimal brain function. However, the role of PUFA on cognitive health outcomes later in life is largely unknown. Objective: We investigated prospective associations of plasma phospholipid omega-3 (ALA [18 : 3], EPA [20 : 5], DPA [22 : 5], DHA...
Article
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Omega-3 (n-3) and omega-6 (n-6) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play critical roles in human health. Prior genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of n-3 and n-6 PUFAs in European Americans from the CHARGE Consortium have documented strong genetic signals in/near the FADS locus on chromosome 11. We performed a GWAS of four n-3 and four n-6 PUFAs...
Article
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Background The association of circulating trimethylamine‐ N ‐oxide (TMAO) with stroke has received limited attention. To address this gap, we examined the associations of serial measures of plasma TMAO with incident ischemic stroke. Methods and Results We used a prospective cohort design with data pooled from 2 cohorts. The settings were the CHS (...
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Importance: US firefighters are a working population at risk of chronic diseases, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. This risk may be mitigated by a healthy diet. Objective: To evaluate the effect of a Mediterranean nutrition intervention using a behavioral/environmental approach (firefighter/fire station/home) at the individ...
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Background Produce prescription programs, providing free or discounted produce and nutrition education to patients with diet‐related conditions within health care systems, have been shown to improve dietary quality and cardiometabolic risk factors. The potential impact of implementing produce prescription programs for patients with diabetes on long...
Article
Open in new tabDownload slide Summary of findings evaluating a new PURE diet score and cardiovascular disease and mortality including nearly 250,000 people across 80 countries.
Article
Background: The current school meal nutrition standards, established in 2010, are not fully aligned with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guideline for Americans (DGA). This study evaluates the potential short-term and long-term health and economic benefits of strengthening the school meal standards on added sugars, sodium, and whole grains to be aligned wit...
Article
Introduction: Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods and industrial produced ingredients and additives. Few countries' policies directly regulate UPF but several countries' dietary guidelines suggest eating less UPF. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) do not mention th...
Article
BACKGROUND The relationship between omega-3 fatty acids and atrial fibrillation (AF) remains controversial. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to determine the prospective associations of blood or adipose tissue levels of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosapentaenoic acid (DPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) with incident AF. METHODS We used participant-...
Article
Background: 'Food is medicine' strategies aim to integrate food-based nutrition interventions into healthcare systems and are of growing interest to healthcare providers and policy makers. 'Medically Tailored Meals' (MTM) is one such intervention, which involves the 'prescription' by healthcare providers of subsidized, pre-prepared meals for indiv...
Article
Given the constraints of both overseas development aid and domestic financing for nutrition, innovative financing is critical-yet nutrition lags behind other sectors in catalysing it. Here, we argue that the framing for nutrition must evolve and critical actions must be taken to generate more money for nutrition and more nutrition for money. Food s...
Article
Poor nutrition is the leading cause of poor health, health care spending, and lost productivity in the United States and globally, which acts through cardiometabolic diseases as precursors to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other conditions. There is great interest in how the social determinants of health (the conditions in which people are bor...
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Unlabelled: Policy Points Suboptimal diet is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. Excise taxes on junk food are not widely utilized in the United States. The development of a workable definition of the food to be taxed is a substantial barrier to implementation. Three decades of legislative and regulatory definitions of...
Article
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Despite the accumulating evidence that increased consumption of ultra-processed food has adverse health implications, it remains difficult to decide what constitutes processed food. Indeed, the current processing-based classification of food has limited coverage and does not differentiate between degrees of processing, hindering consumer choices an...
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Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child populat...
Preprint
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BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Obesity prevalence in Mexican children has increased rapidly and is among the highest in the world. We aimed to estimate the longitudinal association between nonessential energy-dense food (NEDF) consumption and body mass index (BMI) in school-aged children 5 to 11 years, using a cohort study with 6 years of follow-up. SUBJE...
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Objective To assess the impact of menu calorie labelling on reducing obesity-associated cancer burdens in the USA. Design Cost-effectiveness analysis using a Markov cohort state-transition model. Setting Policy intervention. Participants A modelled population of 235 million adults aged ≥20 years in 2015–2016. Interventions The impact of menu ca...
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The global burden of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not well established. This risk assessment model estimated T2D incidence among adults attributable to direct and body weight-mediated effects of 11 dietary factors in 184 countries in 1990 and 2018. In 2018, suboptimal intake of these dietary factors was estimated to be attributable to...
Article
Aims Little is known about associations of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a novel gut microbiota-generated metabolite of dietary phosphatidylcholine and carnitine, and its changes over time with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the general population or in different race/ethnicity groups. The study aimed to investigate associations of seri...
Article
Introduction: The association between ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption and body composition, and potential variation by sociodemographic factors, is unclear. This study aims to examine the cross-sectional associations of UPF consumption with imaging markers of body fat distribution in a nationally representative sample of US adults, overall...
Article
Introduction: Produce prescriptions are one of several approaches that have been receiving national attention to increase food security while also improving diet for patients with diet-related health challenges. Implementation of produce prescriptions vary widely, from food vouchers to tailored, pre-arranged weekly home deliveries. Our study focuse...
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Introduction: Previous studies have reported inverse associations of circulating and tissue levels of pentadecanoic acid (15:0), heptadecanoic acid (17:0) and trans -palmitoleic acid ( trans 16:1n-7), which have been proposed as potential biomarkers of dairy fat intake, with risk of type-2 diabetes and certain cardiovascular outcomes. Hypothesis: W...
Article
Objective: Produce prescriptions have shown promise in improving diabetes care, although most studies have used small samples or lacked controls. Our objective was to evaluate the impacts of a produce prescription program on glycemic control for patients with diabetes. Research design and methods: Participants included a nonrandom enrollment of...
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A transformation of food systems is needed to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals specified in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recognizing the true costs and benefits of food production and consumption can help guide public policy decisions to effectively transform food systems in support of sustainable healthy diets. A new, e...
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Introduction: WHO guidelines on iron supplementation among children call for further research to identify the optimal schedule, duration, dose and cosupplementation regimen. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials was undertaken. Randomised controlled trials providing ≥30 days of oral iron supplementation v...
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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disrupted access to food and adequate nutrition and the types of foods consumed. However, little empiric data exists on the changes in American's food and nutrition habits 2 y into the pandemic. Objectives: To assess current and altered food choices ∼2 y into the COVID-19 pandemic in the months aft...
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Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, educatio...
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Objective To assess the prospective associations of circulating levels of omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) biomarkers (including plant derived α linolenic acid and seafood derived eicosapentaenoic acid, docosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid) with incident chronic kidney disease (CKD). Design Pooled analysis. Data sources A...
Article
Background: Whole-grain (WG) foods are defined by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), FDA, AHA, American Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI), and Whole Grains Council (WGC) in different ways with diverse focuses on grain components only, whole foods, or nutrient contents. Objectives: We aimed to compare estimated WG food...
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The Food Compass is a nutrient profiling system (NPS) to characterize the healthfulness of diverse foods, beverages and meals. In a nationally representative cohort of 47,999 U.S. adults, we validated a person’s individual Food Compass Score (i.FCS), ranging from 1 (least healthful) to 100 (most healthful) based on cumulative scores of items consum...
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As countries around the world work to restrict unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children, the U.S. remains reliant on industry-self regulation. The First Amendment’s protection for commercial speech and previous gutting of the Federal Trade Commission’s authority pose barriers to restricting food marketing to children. However, false, unfai...
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Introduction: Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is a gut microbiota-derived metabolite of dietary phosphatidylcholine and carnitine. Experimentally, TMAO causes renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis and kidney injury. Yet, little is known about prospective associations between TMAO and renal outcomes. Hypothesis: Higher plasma TMAO levels are prospectively...
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Importance: Medically tailored meals (MTMs) are associated with lower health care utilization among patients with complex diet-related diseases but are not a covered benefit in Medicare or Medicaid. The potential impact of extending insurance coverage for MTMs nationally remains unknown. Objective: To estimate 1- and 10-year potential changes in...
Article
Full-text available
Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, educatio...
Preprint
Full-text available
Omega-3 (n-3) and omega-6 (n-6) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play critical roles in human health. Prior genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of n-3 and n-6 PUFAs in European Americans from the CHARGE Consortium have documented strong genetic signals in/near the FADS locus on chromosome 11. We performed a GWAS of four n-3 and four n-6 PUFAs...
Article
Background: Animal studies suggest that gut microbiome metabolites such as trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) may influence cognitive function and dementia risk. However potential health effects of TMAO and related metabolites remain unclear. Objective: We examined prospective associations of TMAO, γ-butyrobetaine, crotonobetaine, carnitine, choline,...
Article
Background There is growing interest in Food is Medicine programs that incorporate food-based interventions into health care for patients with diet-related conditions. Objectives We aimed to test the feasibility of a “produce prescription” program and its impact on diet quality for people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) experiencing food insecurity in...
Article
In every country, a clear national strategy, goals and metrics are needed to end hunger, improve nutrition, reduce diet-related diseases and create a just, sustainable and equitable food system. We identify six policy domains where real change can be made to deliver this vision in the United States.
Article
Background Effects of animal source foods (ASF) on atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and underlying mechanisms remain controversial. We investigated prospective associations of different ASF with incident ASCVD and potential mediation by gut microbiota-generated trimethylamine N-oxide, its L-carnitine-derived intermediates γ-butyrobeta...
Article
Background Few studies have assessed U.S. cardiometabolic health trends—optimal levels of multiple risk factors and absence of clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD)—or its impact on health disparities. Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate U.S. trends in optimal cardiometabolic health from 1999 to 2018. Methods We assessed propo...
Conference Paper
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Objectives Carbohydrate quality remains a concept under development in the field of Nutrition, and different methods have been proposed to assess healthfulness of carbohydrate-providing foods. The study investigated the relationships between carbohydrate metrics and glycemic index (GI) of grain foods. Methods The investigation was based on data fr...
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Objectives To assess current and altered food habits about two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We recruited a national sample of 1,878 adults balanced by age (18–34 years, 35–49, 50–64, 65+); sex (male, female); race/ethnicity (Non-Hispanic White, Hispanic/Latinx, Non-Hispanic Black/African-American, Asian/Other); and income (<25k/year,...
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Objectives To assess how American adults consider and define healthfulness of food and beverages. Methods In Fall 2021, a national sample of 1,878 adults balanced by age (18–34 years, 35–49, 50–64, 65+), sex, race/ethnicity (Non-Hispanic White, Hispanic/Latinx, Non-Hispanic Black, Asian/other), and annual income, completed an online survey asking...
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Poor diet increases cardiometabolic disease risk, yet the impact of food service guidelines on employee health and its cost effectiveness is poorly understood. Federal food service guidelines (FFSG) aim to provide United States (U.S.) government employees with healthier food options. Using microsimulation modeling, we estimated changes in the incid...
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Background Due to the increasing disease burden, strategies to predict and prevent heart failure (HF) are urgently needed. Objective We aimed to investigate whether the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) and the clinically-abbreviated Prime Diet Quality Score (PDQS) are associated with the risk of overall HF, heart failure with preserved ejec...
Article
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Importance: Little is known about the association of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a novel plasma metabolite derived from L-carnitine and phosphatidylcholine, and related metabolites (ie, choline, betaine, carnitine, and butyrobetaine) with risk of death among older adults in the general population. Objective: To investigate the associations of...
Article
Context Gut microbiota-derived metabolite trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) may adversely affect bone by inducing oxidative stress. Whether this translates into increased fracture risk in older adults is uncertain. Objective Determine the associations of plasma TMAO with hip fracture and bone mineral density (BMD) in older adults. Design and setting...
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Since 1990, obesity prevalence among U.S. adults has soared from 12% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961...
Article
Background: Diet is a major modifiable risk factor for human health and overall consumption patterns affect planetary health. We aimed to quantify global, regional, and national consumption levels of animal-source foods (ASF) to inform intervention, surveillance, and policy priorities. Methods: Individual-level dietary surveys across 185 countries...
Article
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Background: Diet is a major modifiable risk factor for human health and overall consumption patterns affect planetary health. We aimed to quantify global, regional, and national consumption levels of animal-source foods (ASF) to inform intervention, surveillance, and policy priorities. Methods: Individual-level dietary surveys across 185 countri...
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The rapid development of nutrition science is embracing digital transformation to generate large amounts of data. Precision nutrition and "Big Data" place increasing demand for data repositories and visualization, which enhances the digital transformation. We defined the need for an integrated nutrition data platform as a web-based platform that ca...
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The rapid expansion of food and nutrition information requires new ways of data sharing and dissemination. Interactive platforms integrating data portals and visualization dashboards have been effectively utilized to describe, monitor, and track information related to food and nutrition. Yet, a comprehensive evaluation of emerging interactive syste...
Article
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Background: n-3 and n-6 PUFAs have physiologic roles in sleep processes, but little is known regarding circulating n-3 and n-6 PUFA and sleep parameters. Objectives: We sought to assess associations between biomarkers of n-3 and n-6 PUFA intake with self-reported sleep duration and difficulty falling sleeping in the Fatty Acids and Outcome Resea...
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Background: Evidence for the role of omega-3 fatty acids in the prevention of atrial fibrillation (AF) remain inconsistent, with some recent RCTs even suggesting possible harm. Whether long-term dietary intake of these fatty acids, as assessed using objective biomarkers, is related to AF is not known. Aims: To prospectively evaluate circulating and...
Article
Background: Diet diversity and quality are each recommended to promote a healthy diet and prevent chronic disease. Yet, little is known on how diet diversity relates to diet quality or cardiometabolic health, particularly in underrepresented subgroups disproportionally affected by poor nutrition and CVD. Aims: To determine relationships of 1) dieta...
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Background Diet is a major modifiable risk factor for human health and overall consumption patterns affect planetary health. We aimed to quantify global, regional, and national consumption levels of animal-source foods (ASF) to inform intervention, surveillance, and policy priorities.
Article
Background: In 2021, the National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI) released voluntary sugar reduction targets for packaged foods and drinks in the United States (U.S). Objective: The objectives of this study were to describe trends in added sugar intake from NSSRI foods and beverages among children and youth and estimate possible redu...
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OBJECTIVE Trans fatty acids (TFAs) have harmful biologic effects that could increase the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but evidence remains uncertain. We aimed to investigate the prospective associations of TFA biomarkers and T2D by conducting an individual participant-level pooled analysis. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We included data from an in...