Preventative Cardiology

Dr. Gidding is co-investigator with the imaging laboratory at Johns Hopkins as the coordinating center for the year-25 echocardiography examination in the CARDIA study, a longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease risk factors in young adults, and the TODAY study (just recently funded), a study of cardiovascular risk in adolescents with type II diabetes mellitus. The GlaxoSmithKline trial of fish oil treatment of elevated triglycerides in children is recruiting patients. Dr. Gidding is a co-investigator on a new grant submitted to NHLBI to develop a cardiovascular outcomes research center in Delaware that includes a proposal on the education of primary care providers in cardiovascular risk management. This work is in collaboration with Drs. Lloyd Werk, Gabriella Ramirez, Duane Steward, and Sandra Hassink. Dr. Gidding is a co-investigator with Dr. Bonita Falkner on the Hypertension in African American Adolescents NHLBI-funded study. New collaborative studies with PDAY and CARDIA on imaging of atherosclerosis are underway. Dr. Gidding participates on two Data Safety Monitoring Boards, one for a study of hypertension, and the other on obesity prevention. He has been named to the Program Committee for the spring meeting of the American Heart Association Epidemiology Council.

Dr. Gidding is an internationally recognized investigator in preventive cardiology and maintains a leadership role in national efforts to prevent heart disease. He is working on the NIH panel on recognition of cardiovascular risk factors in youth and with an American Heart Association writing group on non-traditional risk factors. These collaborations keep Nemours programs highly visible in national efforts in obesity and preventive cardiology. Findings from these studies will be important in understanding early end organ injury from cardiovascular risk factors.