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Andrew Mente, PhD

Professor
McMaster University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Mente received his doctoral degree in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. He completed post-doctoral training in cardiovascular epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and is currently a Professor at the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI), and the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI), Hamilton Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He has received a Research Fellowship from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Hamilton Health Sciences, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Dr. Mente has studied the role of dietary sodium and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). His work helped to define a “sweet spot” for sodium intake in populations globally in the largest studies ever on sodium and mortality or CVD. A strategy of sodium reduction that targets communities and countries with high mean sodium intake (eg, >5g/d) might be preferable to a global strategy that aims to achieve universal sodium restriction.
Dr. Mente also has studied dietary nutrients, foods and patterns in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. He has co-led an investigation on the role of fats and carbohydrates in cardiovascular disease in 135,000 participants in 21 countries in Africa, North America, Europe, South America and Asia in the PURE cohort. Among the key findings, the work from PURE showed that low intake of key natural foods (and potentially under-nutrition) rather than high intake or over-nutrition may be the major problem with diet in relation to mortality and CVD globally. This challenges current beliefs. Additionally, Dr. Mente’s work showed that focusing on a single lipid marker such as LDL-cholesterol alone may be misleading when used to provide nutrition advice to populations, and that large long-term studies of clinical events are needed. He also has conducted several frequently cited systematic reviews of diet and health outcomes. Recently, Dr. Mente and his team developed a healthy diet score that is associated with health outcomes and is globally applicable using data from PURE and replicated it in five independent studies on a total of 245,000 people from 80 countries. This is the largest and most diverse study ever on diet and health outcomes.

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