Arne Astrup Senior Vice President The Novo Nordisk Foundation

Professor Arne Astrup, MD, DMSc. is Senior Vice President at The Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark, and leader of the Dept of Obesity and Nutritional Sciences.

Arne Astrup has been a professor and department head at University of Copenhagen since 1990. He was Head of the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, from 2012 to 2020, and Chief Consultant at the Unit for Clinical Nutrition Research, Bispebjerg Frederiksberg University Hospital. Under Arne Astrup’s leadership the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports ranked number one of sports and nutrition research environments in 2018 in the internationally recognized Shanghai Ranking of Global Ranking of Sport Science Schools and Departments.

Arne Astrup was chairman of the State Council for Nutrition 1998-2003. Dr Astrup is past President of World Obesity Federation and founding editor-in-chief of Obesity Reviews. He is Editor of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Throughout an academic career spanning over 30 years Arne Astrup’s main scientific interests have been appetite regulation, treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and diseases where nutrition and physical activity play a role. Arne Astrup publishes frequently in journals such as British Medical Journal, Lancet, Nature and New England Journal of Medicine, and have published more than 800 peer-reviewed scientific papers and more than 1000 other academic publications such as abstracts, textbook chapters and scientific correspondence. In 2018 Clarivate’s (Web of Science) named him among the most cited researchers in the world. Current H-index is 102: Google Scholar H-index is 137 with 88000 citations. He has supervised 42 PhD students to date.

He is also interested in bridging nutrition, gastronomy and health, and has written a large number of popular diet books, which have been published in several countries, including the United States, Australia, and Germany. In 1996 Arne Astrup discovered, together with Professor Jens Holst, that GLP-1 is a satiety hormone in humans. Astrup played a major role in the prohibition in 2004 of industrially produced trans fats in foods in Denmark.

Arne Astrup was awarded Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in 1999 by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Knight of the First Order of Dannebrog in November 2012. He was the recipient of the International Association for the Study of Obesity 2014 Willendorf Award.