RICHARD DOLL SEMINAR: Prevention of type 2 diabetes - the scientific evidence
Professor Jaakko Tuomilehto, Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait
Tuesday, 26 April 2016, 1pm to 2pm
Lecture Theatre, Richard Doll Bldg., Old Road Campus
Jaakko Tuomilehto MD MA (Sociol) PhD FRCP (Edin)
Chief Scientific Officer
Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait
Professor Jaakko Tuomilehto qualified as MD in 1973 and MA in sociology in 1975 at the University of Turku, Finland. He is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait. He is Professor Emeritus of Public Health of the University of Helsinki, and affiliated with the Chronic Disease Prevention Unit of the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare, the Danube-University Krems in Austria, and Diabetes Research Group at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia.
He has contributed in various landmark studies, e.g. the North Karelia Project in Finland, the WHO MONICA Project, and the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study that demonstrated a 58% reduction in the incidence of diabetes with lifestyle intervention. He led the WHO DIAMOND Project mapping of the incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes worldwide. He also established other large international collaborations, including the DECODE/DECODA (Diabetes Epidemiology-Collaborative analysis of Diagnostic Criteria in Europe/Asia) studies that have assessed the glucose criteria for the diagnosis of diabetes.
He has been a member of several American Diabetes Association and WHO committees on the definition and diagnostic criteria of diabetes, and the European Society of Cardiology, where he played a role in the recent “Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Guideline” task force. He is also the current Editor-in-Chief of Primary Care Diabetes.
He has received various awards, including the ADA Kelly West Award and Harold Rifkin Award, EASD Camillo Golgi Award, Peter Bennett Diabetes Epidemiology Award, UNESCO – Hellmut Mehnert Award, AHA Frederick H. Epstein Memorial Lecture Award, Karolinska Institute Folksam Prize in Epidemiological Research and ESC Geoffrey Rose Award. He has contributed to over 1600 scientific peer-reviewed publications, and is a highly cited researcher [Thomas Reuter Highly Cited Researcher] with H-index of 155.
He is also a recipient of a Litchfield Lectureship (without title) award which made possible his visit to Oxford.