Alberto Ascherio

About

Alberto Ascherio, MD, DrPH, is a Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his Doctorate in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan and worked for several years in medicine and public health in Latin America and Africa before obtaining a Master and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard. Over the past 25 years, his research has focused on discovering the causes of neurodegenerative diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and cognitive decline. He has conducted longitudinal studies in various populations, contributing to the identification of biomarkers and modifiable risk factors for these diseases, such as cigarette smoking, vitamin D insufficiency, childhood obesity, pesticide exposure, low caffeine intake, low physical activity, military service, and low body mass index. His most notable scientific contribution stems from a 20-year investigation of over 10 million young adults, which led to the discovery that MS is a rare complication of infection with the Epstein-Barr virus. Dr. Ascherio has published over 400 research papers and reviews, and his work has been recognized with several awards, including an honorary Doctor of Medicine from the University of Southern Denmark for his work on vitamin D insufficiency as a risk factor for MS.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Virology
• Cardiology
• Biology
• Bioinformatics
• Immunology

Selected publications

• Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis

  Science · 2022 · 1935 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted…

  DOI

• The Mediterranean diet, plasma metabolome, and cardiovascular disease risk

  European Heart Journal · 2020 · 356 citations

  Abstract Aims To investigate whether metabolic signature composed of multiple plasma metabolites can be used to characterize adherence and metabolic response to the Mediterranean diet and whether such a metabolic signature is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Methods and results Our primary study cohort included 1859 participants from the Spanish PREDIMED trial, and validation cohorts included 6868 participants from the US Nurses’ Health Studies I and II, and Health Professional…

  DOI

• Metagenomics of the Gut Microbiome in Parkinson's Disease: Prodromal Changes

  Annals of Neurology · 2023-06-14 · 51 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Prior studies on the gut microbiome in Parkinson's disease (PD) have yielded conflicting results, and few studies have focused on prodromal (premotor) PD or used shotgun metagenomic profiling to assess microbial functional potential. We conducted a nested case-control study within 2 large epidemiological cohorts to examine the role of the gut microbiome in PD. METHODS: We profiled the fecal metagenomes of 420 participants in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrating genetics and metabolomics from multi-ethnic and multi-fluid data reveals putative mechanisms for age-related macular degeneration

  Cell Reports Medicine · 2023-06-21 · 41 citations

  articleOpen access

  Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in older adults. Investigating shared genetic components between metabolites and AMD can enhance our understanding of its pathogenesis. We conduct metabolite genome-wide association studies (mGWASs) using multi-ethnic genetic and metabolomic data from up to 28,000 participants. With bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis involving 16,144 advanced AMD cases and 17,832 controls, we identify 108 putatively causal relatio…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Consumption of Olive Oil and Diet Quality and Risk of Dementia-Related Death

  JAMA Network Open · 2024-05-06 · 36 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Age-standardized dementia mortality rates are on the rise. Whether long-term consumption of olive oil and diet quality are associated with dementia-related death is unknown. Objective: To examine the association of olive oil intake with the subsequent risk of dementia-related death and assess the joint association with diet quality and substitution for other fats. Design, Setting, and Participants: This prospective cohort study examined data from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS; 1990-2…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01ES012667

  NIH · $1.0M · 2009

• NIH Grant R21NS043604

  NIH · $400k · 2005

• NIH Grant R01NS048517

  NIH · $2.1M · 2011

Frequent coauthors

• Michael A. Schwarzschild

  Harvard University

  646 shared

• Éilis J. O’Reilly

  Department of Health

  522 shared

• Walter C. Willett

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  409 shared

• Kjetil Bjørnevik

  Harvard University

  326 shared

• Laurence N. Kolonel

  312 shared

• Kassandra L. Munger

  Harvard University

  309 shared

• Xiang Gao

  Columbia University

  299 shared

• Loı̈c Le Marchand

  Cancer Center of Hawaii

  257 shared

Awards & honors

• Doctor of Medicine honoris causa from the University of Sout…

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