Howard Sesso

Dr. Howard D. Sesso is an Associate Epidemiologist at the Divisions of Preventive Medicine and Aging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is an expert in the design, methodology, and conduct of randomized clinical trials and epidemiologic studies, focusing on vitamin and mineral supplements plus other lifestyle factors in the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension, obesity, cancer, and other aging-related outcomes. Dr. Sesso is Associate Director of the Division of Preventive Medicine at BWH and is with Director of Nutrition Research and Co-Director of Hypertension Research. Dr. Sesso helps lead the Physicians’ Health Study, consisting of two separate completed clinical trials that have tested aspirin along with beta-carotene, vitamin E, vitamin C, and a multivitamin supplements on cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases in 29,071 men with multiple blood collections and decades of follow-up. Dr. Sesso is also testing vitamin D and fish oil supplements on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure and hypertension risk in an ancillary study of the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL) trial, along with involvement in other VITAL ancillary studies. Dr. Sesso is Co-Principal Investigator of the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), an ongoing randomized, 2×2 factorial trial testing cocoa flavanol and multivitamin supplements in the prevention of CVD and cancer in 21,442 older women and men. Dr. Sesso has also led completed and ongoing short-term trials of various dietary supplements on cardiometabolic outcomes. Dr. Sesso has published more than 350 papers to date and teaches courses on clinical trials and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, and enjoys mentoring students and junior faculty.