Fernando Rodríguez-Artalejo - Biography#

The main research interest of Prof. Rodríguez-Artalejo is the study of the natural history of cardiovascular disease (CVD), frailty, and disability in older adults, as well as its determinants, including behavioral, biological and omic factors. Indeed, Dr Rodríguez-Artalejo has been one of the pioneers in the study of the magnitude and distribution of CVD Spain, and its immediate risk factors (obesity, cholesterolemia, blood pressure) and his work has illuminated most of the programs to control this disease in his country in the last thirty years.

Subsequently (about 15 years ago), he developed an interest in the prevention of frailty, and disability in older adults, as well as promotion of healthy aging. He is leading the use of systems epidemiology to integrate information from environmental factors, lifestyle, psychosocial factors, biomarker and genetic variables to disentangle its role in the development of functional limitations in older adults. Therefore, his research has allowed drafting a very complete picture of the main determinants of healthy ageing, which has served to identify interventions with potential to improve health in the old age.

To conduct his research, Dr. Rodríguez Artalejo has successfully established and followed three population-based cohorts of older adults in Spain (UAM cohort, Seniors-ENRICA-1 and Seniors ENRICA-2 cohorts), which have yielded over 200 manuscripts published in top quality journals in the last 10 years. He is using these three research infrastructures to collaborate and compete with the best groups in the world in this field, including researchers in Harvard University, Columbia University, UCL in London, Oxford University and the Karolinska Institute. Access to the data form these three cohort is free for the research community upon request.

Full list of publications