March 13, 2004
Name: William B. Grant
Degree: Ph.D. in Physics, U.C. Berkeley
Professional Career: Worked at the level of senior research scientist in
the fields of optical and laser remote sensing of the atmosphere and atmospheric
sciences at SRI International, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the NASA Langley
Research Center. This career included doing pioneering laser remote sensing instrument
development, while the latter half included participating on many NASA-led airborne
atmospheric chemistry field missions to the far corners of the world, as well
as writing a number of papers on the observations. Author or coauthor of over
60 articles in the peer-reviewed journals, edited 2 books of reprints, and contributed
half a dozen chapters to other books. Elected Fellow of the Optical Society of
America in 1992.
Current Position: Director, Sunlight, Nutrition
and Health Research Center, an entity devoted to research, education, and advocacy
relating to the prevention of chronic disease through changes in diet and lifestyle.
Key
contributions in the field of nutrition and ultraviolet radiation research, health
and disease:
- Published the first paper linking diet to Alzheimer's
disease and identifying the major dietary components that are risk and risk reduction
factors.
- Presented strong evidence that sweeteners are an important
risk factor for coronary heart disease for pre-menopausal women.
- Extended
the list of internal cancers for which vitamin D reduces the risk from 5 to 16
in an ecologic study including solar ultraviolet-B (UVB) irradiance, degree of
urbanization, lung cancer mortality rates, alcohol consumption, fraction of white
Americans with Hispanic heritage, and fraction of the population living below
the poverty level (submitted).
- Confirmed a recent finding from Scandinavia
that men with moderate serum 25(OH)D levels have lower risk for prostate cancer
than those with lower or higher levels. An ecologic study of prostate cancer mortality
rates in the U.S. was used.
- Confirmed allium family vegetables (onions,
garlic, etc.) as important risk reduction factors for prostate cancer.
- Confirmed
that animal products are important risk factors for breast, colon, and prostate
cancer.
- Performed a critical review of papers reporting findings on vitamin
D and colorectal cancer, concluding that at the population level, dietary vitamin
D amounts are insufficient at present to significantly reduce the risk; only total
ingested vitamin D (diet plus supplements) plus solar or artificial UVB can raise
serum 25(OH)D3 levels to protective levels.
- Summarized the evidence on
UVB and vitamin D in reducing the risk of non-calcemic diseases for a National
Institutes of Health vitamin D conference (submitted).
Current
health-related research activities:
- Making the case that autism is,
to some extent, a maternal vitamin D-deficient disease.
- Extending studies
on solar UVB and vitamin D in reducing the risk of cancer.
- Extending
studies on dietary links to cancer and other chronic diseases.
- Investigating
dietary, lifestyle, smoking, and UV links to melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer.
- Investigating the health aspects of solar and artificial UVA and UVB.
- Working to restore the ecologic approach to a position of respect among
the health research community.
- Researching whether autism is, to some
extent, a maternal vitamin D-deficient disease, and the role that infant vaccinations
may play.
Key publications:
Grant WB. Dietary links to Alzheimer's
disease. Alz Dis Rev 1997;2:42-55 http://www.mc.uky.edu/adreview/Vol2/Grant/grant.pdf (55 Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) citations, 4 book citations)
Grant
WB. Milk and other dietary influences on coronary heart disease. Altern Med
Rev, 1998;3:281?94. http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/3/4/281.html (5 ISI citations, 1 book citation)
Grant WB. An ecologic study of dietary
and solar UV-B links to breast carcinoma mortality rates. Cancer. 2002;94:272-81.
(16 ISI citations) http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/89012143/START
Grant
WB. An estimate of premature cancer mortality in the United States due to inadequate
doses of solar ultraviolet-B radiation, Cancer. 2002;94:1867-75. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/91016211/START (26 ISI citations) (note - this puts the paper in the top 1 percentile of clinical
medicine papers published in 2002) http://www.in-cites.com/thresholds-highly-cited.html
Grant WB. A multicountry ecologic study of risk and risk reduction factors
for prostate cancer mortality, Eur Urol. 2004;45:371-9.
Grant WB, Garland
CF. A critical review of studies on vitamin D in relation to colorectal cancer.
Nutr Cancer. in press (accepted mid-February 2004).
Grant WB. Geographic
variation of prostate cancer mortality rates in the U.S.A.; implications for prostate
cancer risk related to vitamin D; Int J Cancer. (accepted Feb. 12, 2004) |
