(Circulation. 1998;97:627.)
© 1998 American Heart Association, Inc.
Award for Dr Scott Grundy
Ruth SoRelle
Scott M.
Grundy, MD, PhD, has received the 1997 Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead
Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research. Dr
Grundy was the first researcher to demonstrate the advantages of
substituting monounsaturated fats for
polyunsaturated fats in the diet. Dr Grundy's work led to an increase
in the use of olive oil and similar oils in the American cuisine. He
has also made other important discoveries relating to the mechanisms
that control blood cholesterol. Among his findings were
those that led to the development and widespread use of statins—drugs
that lower lipids in the blood.
Dr Grundy is a professor of Internal Medicine and Biochemistry at the
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He is also
director and chairman for the Center for Human Nutrition and the
Department of Clinical Nutrition at the medical school. His work began
in the 1960s, when he contributed to the development of the
cholesterol balance technique, a method of precisely
measuring the amount of cholesterol that people absorb in
their daily diets and how cholesterol is processed and
distributed in the human body. Ultimately, he showed that the
redistribution rather than the excretion of cholesterol is
the most effective way of lowering lipid levels in the blood. The
redistribution occurs in response to a diet high in polyunsaturated
fat. It is now known that fats increase the number of receptors in the
liver for LDL cholesterol—receptors that literally pull
cholesterol out of the blood and turn it into bile
acids.
Dr Grundy's work led to better understanding of how gallstones form
and suggested new options for treatment. By studying Pima Indians, he
linked the high rate of obesity in the tribe to their increased risk of
developing gallstones.
By the 1980s, Dr Grundy and his colleagues were turning their
attention to the importance of monounsaturated fats
as part of a heart-healthy diet. By following the diets of large groups
of patients over a long period of time, Dr Grundy's group at the
University of California at San Diego showed that
monounsaturated fats lower cholesterol
as well as polyunsaturated fats. High levels of polyunsaturated fats
were not found in diets elsewhere in the world, and Dr Grundy had
worried that they could induce problems that had not previously been
suspected. His findings about monounsaturated fats
led to dietary recommendations that were approved by the American Heart
Association and other public health groups. Dr Grundy's work with the
statins in the 1980s pushed pharmaceutical companies to invest in
research and development that led to the drug's being approved for
general marketing.
Dr Grundy received his undergraduate degree from what was then Texas
Technological College and earned a combined MD/MS degree from Baylor
College of Medicine in 1960.
