Professor Michael Lean MA MB BChir MD FRCP (Edin) FRCPS (Glas)

Mike Lean holds the position of Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow where he is also a Consultant Physician at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Contact details

4th Floor
Walton Building
Royal Infirmary
84 Castle Street
Glasgow G4 0SF
tel: 0141 211 4686
fax: 0141 211 4844
email: mej.lean@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

Profile

Professor Lean holds the position of chair and head of the department of Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow. He trained in medicine at the University of Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s Hospital subsequently specialising in general medicine, diabetes and endocrinology.

His early clinical training was mainly in Aberdeen, but he returned to Cambridge to join the Medical Research Council and University of Cambridge Dunn Nutrition Unit. There he embarked on a research career in nutrition, specialising in diabetes, and in obesity and energy balance, which included writing a thesis on brown adipose tissue in humans. In 1990, he was appointed to his present position, to lead and develop a new university department of human nutrition, teaching and directing research into human nutrition and its impact on many different aspects of health and medical practice, with an increasing team of research colleagues.

The department was initially established by 10 year grant from the Rank Prize Funds and Rank Foundation, and subsequently expanded by SHERT. Professor Lean has increasingly become involved in public health and health promotion measures to prevent disease, and to promote good health through health eating, including writing a weekly column for the Sunday Herald in 2001-2002. From 1995 to 2003, he was a non-executive director of the Health Education Board for Scotland. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed original papers and similar numbers of academic reviews and clinical guidelines for evidence-based practice. He was central to the Scottish Diet Working Group and a co-author of the Diet Action Plan and SIGN guideline on Obesity published in 1996. In 2002, he was appointed chairman of the Advisory Committee on Research of the Food Standards Agency (London) and he was on the expert advisory panel of the Joint Health Claims Initiative, which evaluated the Health Claims made by the food industry for foods.

He was a founder of Counterweight, the national primary care weight management programme, and completed a 6-month Leverhulme fellowship in Denver, Colorado, to develop approaches for preventing obesity and its clinical consequences, and engaging both government and industry partners. This work is seeing fruitful progress in New Zealand, through his founding involvement in the Centre for Translational Research in Chronic Diseases at the University of Otago.

Research

Diet and Chronic Disease Translational Research Group

Funding

Food Standards Agency Scotland (2009-2011, £185,223). CR Hankey, MEJ Lean and WS Leslie. The eatwell week: application of the eatwell plate advice to weekly food intake.

Food Standards Agency (2007-2010, £645,850). CR Hankey, WS Leslie, S Boyle, H Murray, M MacKenzie, MEJ Lean. Food choice and changes in body weight and shape in those attempting smoking cessation.

NovoNordisk (2007-2009, £96,458). MEJ Lean. Effect of liraglutide on body weight in obese subjects without diabetes. A 20 week randomised, double-blind, placebo-control 6 armed parallel group, multi-centre, multinational trial with an open label orlistat comparator arm.

Abbott Laboratories (2003-2008, £220,569). MEJ Lean. Sibutramine cardiovascular morbidity/mortality outcomes study in overweight or obese subjects at risk of cardiovascular event (SCOUT trial).

Merck Sharp & Dohme (2005-2007, £137,494). MEJ Lean. A two year study (One year weight loss followed by one year prevention of weight regain) to assess the safety, tolerability and efficacy of L-000899055 in obese patients.

Meat and Livestock Commission (2005-2007, £99,061). CR Hankey, WS Leslie, MEJ Lean. Is iron status in dieting pre-menopausal women affected by red meat consumption?

Chief Scientist Office (2005-2006, £11,970). MEJ Lean, M Granat. An investigation of the predictive value of the measurement of upright free-living physical activity in determining the risk factors of heart disease.

Scottish Quality Salmon (2005-2006, £27,500). MEJ Lean. Benefits of salmon eating on traditional and novel vascular risk factors in young, non-obese healthy subjects.

Publications