James O. Hill, Ph.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Director, Center for Human Nutrition
Director, Colorado Clinical Nutrition Research Unit (CNRU)

Department/Division:
Department of Pediatrics

Contact information:
email: CHN@uchsc.edu

James O. Hill, Ph.D. is Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Hill also serves as the Director of the Center for Human Nutrition, a nutrition center funded by the National Institutes of Health.

He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Tennessee and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of New Hampshire in Physiological Psychology. He has served on numerous government panels, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Taskforce on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity. He is a past chair of the NIH Nutrition Study Section. He served as Chair of the World Health Organization Consultation on Obesity in 1997. He is a Past President of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NASSO) and is a current regional vice-president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO). He was also a member of the Expert Panel on Obesity of the National Institutes of Health that developed U.S guidelines for the treatment and prevention of obesity. He serves as chair of the Partnership to Promote Healthy Eating and Active Living (PPHEAL), a public-private partnership to improve nutrition and physical activity patterns of the population. He is a member of several other professional organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Nutrition, the American Society of Nutrition Sciences, the American Physiological Society and the American College of Sports Medicine.

Dr. Hill has published more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters in the area of obesity. His research in the obesity field involves the study of lifestyle factors that affect body weight regulation. In particular, he is interested in how diet and physical activity influence body weight and how high fat diet and inactivity may contribute to the current global epidemic of obesity. Dr. Hill is a cofounder of the National Weight Control Registry, a registry of individuals who have been successful in maintenance of a reduced body weight. He is the recipient of a prestigious MERIT award from NIH. Dr. Hill is a member of the editorial boards of Obesity Research, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and The International Journal of Obesity. He reviews for many other scientific journals and lectures widely about the obesity epidemic.

Dr. Hill is co-founder of America on the Move, a national weight gain prevention initiative that aims to inspire Americans to make small changes in how much they eat and how much they move to prevent weight gain. Dr. Hill established The Colorado Weigh, a behavioral weight management program that is offered to the public. He is the author of the Step Diet Book, published in June 2004.

Honors

• National Research Service Award from NIH, 5/82.
• Member NIDDK Task Force on Obesity 6/91- 2/99.
• Co-founder, National Weight Control Registry (NWCR)
• Member, Steering Committee on Healthy Weights; Providing Advice to USDA and DHHS for 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• Chair, Advisory Committee for ILSI PAN program, 1995-present.
• Member, NHLBI Expert Panel on Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease. 1995-1998.
• Member, NIH Nutrition Study Section, 1996-2001; Chair 2000-2001.
• Chair, WHO Consultation on Obesity, June 1997.
• President, North American Association for the Study of Obesity 1997-8.
• MERIT Award from NIH, 1998-2005
• President’s Lecturer, American College Sports Medicine, 2000
• McGovern Award, Ball St. University, 2004.

Publications (representative from over 220)

1. Hill, J.O., Wyatt, H.R., Reed, G.W. and Peters, J.C. Obesity and the environment: Where do we go from here? Science 299:853-855, 2003.
2. Melanson E, Sharp TA, Schneider J, Donahoo WT, Grunwald GK, and Hill JO. Relation between calcium intake and fat oxidation in adult humans. International Journal of Obesity, 27: 196-203, 2003.
3. Levine J, Peters J, Saris M, and Hill J. Impact of physical activity on the emerging crisis of obesity in Asia . Asia Pacific J Clinical Nutrition, 11(Suppl) pp in press.
4. Levine J, Melanson EL, Westerterp KR, and Hill JO. Tracmor system for measuring walking energy expenditure. European Journal of Clinical Nutirition, in press.
5. Hill JO, Kohrt W, and Melanson E. Gender issues in nutrition. Journal of Gender Specific Medicine, in press.
6. Donnelly, J., D, Jacobsen, J.O. Hill, The effects of a 16-month, randomized, controlled exercise trial on body weight and composition in young, overweight men and women: the midwest exercise trial (MET). Arch Intern Med, in press, 2003.
7. Kendall, D.M., Sobel, B.E., Coulston, A.M., Peters Harmel, A.L., McLean, B.K., Peragallo-Dittko, V.P., Buse, J.B., Fonseca, V.A., Hill, J.O, Nesto, R.W., Pi Sunyer, F.X. The insulin resistance syndrome and coronary artery disease. Coron Artery Disease 14:335-348, 2003.
8. Kosmiski, L., D. Kuritzkes, T. Sharp, J. Hamilton, K. Lichtenstein, J. Hill, and R. Eckel. Total energy expenditure is increased in men with the HIV lipodistrophy syndrome. In press.
9. Potteiger, J.A., Jacobsen, D.J., Donnelly, J.E. and Hill, J.O. Glucose and insulin responses following 16 months of exercise training in overweight adults: The Midwest Exercise Trial (MET). Metab, in press.
10. Grunwald, G.K., Melanson, E.L., Forster, J.E., Seagle, H.M., Sharp, T.A., and Hill, J.O. A comparision of methods for achieving 24h energy balance in a whole-room calorimeter. Obes Res11 752-759, 2003.
11. Foster, G.D., Wyatt, H.R., Hill, J.O., McGuckin, B.G., Brill, C., Mohammed, S., Szapary, P.O., Rader, D.J., Edman, J.S. , and Klein, S. A multi-center, randomized, controlled clinical trial of the Atkin’s diet. NE J Med 348:282-290, 2003.
12. Heska S, Anderson JW, Atkinson RL, Greenway FL, Hill JO, Phinney SD, Kolotkin RL, Miller-Kovach K, and Pi-Sunyer F. Self Help Weight Loss vs a Structured Commercial Program: A Randomized, Controlled Two-Year Trial. JAMA 289:1799-1805, 2003.
13. Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Costs associated with the primray prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus in the Diabetes Prevention Program. Diab Care 26:36-47, 2003.
14. The Look AHEAD Research Group. Look AHEAD: Action for Health in Diabetes. Design and methods for a clinical trial of weight loss for the prevention or cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetes. Contr Clin Trials 610-628, 2003.
15. Donnelly, J.E., Kirk, E.P., D.J. Jacobsen, J.O. Hill, and D. Sullivan. Effects of 16-months of verified, supervised aerobic exercise on macronutrient intake in overweight men and women: the midwest trial (MET). Am J Clin Nutr 78:950-956, 2003.
16. Haugen, H.A., Melanson, E.L., Tran, Z.V. Kearny, J.T., and Hill, J.O. Variability of measured metabolic rate. Am J Clin Nutr 78:1141-1144, 2003.
17. Phelan, S., Hill, J.O., Lang, W., DiBello, J.R., and Wing R.R. Recovering from relapse among successful weight maintainers. Am J Clin Nutr 78:1079-1084, 2003.
18. Sharp TA, Grunwald GK, Giltinan KEK, King DL, Jatkauskas CJ, and Hill JO. Association of anthropometric measures with risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in Hispanic and Caucasian adolescents. Prev Med 37:611-616, 2003.
19. Grunwald GK, Sullivan KD, Hise M, Donnelly JE, Jacobsen DJ, Johnson SL, Hill JO. Number of days, number of subjects, and sources of variation in longitudinal intervention or crossover feeding trials with multiple days of measurement. Br J Nutr 90:1087-1095, 2003.
20. Wyatt, H.R. and Hill, J.O. What role for weight-loss medication? Postgrad Med 115:38-45, 2004.
21. Gorin, A.A., Phelan, S., Wing, R.R., and Hill, J.O. Promoting long-term weight control: does dieting consistency matter? Intern J Obes 28:278-281, 2004.
22. Del Parigi A, Chen K, Salbe AD, Hill JO, Wing RR, Reiman EM, Tataranni PA. Persistency of obese-like neural activity in recovered obese in response to a meal. Intern J Obes 28:370-377, 2004.

Research Support

Ongoing Research Support

1) 1 R37 DK42549 (Hill) 8/1/98 - 7/31/06

Diet & Physical Activity Interactions in Obesity

The major goal of this study is to understand how small changes in diet and physical activity can help in prevention and treatment of obesity.

2) 1 P30 DK48520 (Hill) 03/15/95-12/31/05

Development of a Clinical Nutrition Research Unit (CNRU)

This is a center grant to foster collaborative, multidisciplinary research in nutrition among NIH funded nutrition researchers. The grant supports core laboratories and a pilot project program.

3) 1 U01 DK57151 (Hill) 8/01/99-7/30/07

Study of Health Outcomes with Weight Loss (SHOW).

This is a study to assess the benefits of voluntary weight loss in individuals with Type 2 Diabetes. This is a multicenter clinical trial.

4) 1 RO1 DK58385 (Donnelly) 5/01/00-4/30/05

Prevention of Obesity by Alteration of Dietary Fat

This study aims to investigate the role of low fat diets in prevention of weight gain.

5) 1 RO1 AT01103 (Foster) 3/01/02-02/28/07

Safety & Efficacy of the Atkins Diet

This is a trial to test the safety and effectiveness of the the Atkins diet compared to a standard low fat diet.

6) 1 RO1 DK38808 (Hill) 9/1/00-8/31/05

Utilization of Ingested Energy during Underfeeding

This grant uses a rodent model of dietary obesity to examine factors that affect weight loss and maintenance of weight loss.