Specialization
Focus of research
As a professor of lifestyle and cardiometabolic disease epidemiology, I pursue to identify effective ways to improve lifestyle behaviours and reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Earlier work was focussed on the association of specific, single dietary factors such as vitamin K in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, supported by two personal grants from the Dutch Heart Foundation. I used data from large-scale observational cohort studies like the Health Professionals Follow-up Study in my time as visiting scientist at Harvard School of Public Health or data from the European EPIC collaboration. For example, we showed that dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet are associated with a longer life expectancy in good health. I conducted several randomized controlled trials with vitamin K supplementation to investigate underlying mechanisms.
Since 2015, I lead the group on lifestyle and chronic disease epidemiology of Amsterdam UMC. I am PI of the Supreme Nudge consortium (2.5 MEuro), in which we aim to investigate the effect of nudging and pricing strategies to reduce cardiometabolic risk. This study is done in collaboration with Coop Supermarkets, the Dutch Nutrition Center and 4 academic institutions. I act as one of the 6 PI’s of the Exposome-NL program (17 MEuro), a 10 year research program funded by the Dutch government (NWO Gravitation) to investigate the role of environmental risk factors of cardiometabolic diseases and interventions to prevent those. Finally, I was awarded a prestigious ZonMw VIDI-grant for my research line on emerging risk factors of cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes. Since 2017, I act as a member and vice-chair (since 2021) of the nutrition council of the Dutch Health council and as a member of the international scientific committee of Nutri-Score (since 2021). Since January 2024, I am vice-chair of the division 'Primary care, public health and methodology' of Amsterdam UMC.