Sugar, Stress, Environment, & Weight Initiative

SSEW is a University of California wide initiative that includes researchers, physicians, and policy makers across 9 campuses. See our interdisciplinary collaborators below.

Clinical Science

Kerri Boutelle, phd | UCSD

causes, characterization, prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity and eating disorders

psychological, social, and behavioral processes related to chronic psychological stress that accelerate biological aging, with a focus on the telomere/telomerase maintenance system; the interconnections between emotional processes, eating, and metabolism

Arpana Gupta, phd | ucla

influence of psychosocial factors on stress and pain-related health outcomes

fredeRick Hecht, md | ucsf

improve interventions for chronic health problems such as HIV, diabetes, obesity, and stress, by incorporating mindfulness and/or yoga-based components

Ronald Krauss, md | ucsf, uc berkeley

plasma lipoprotein metabolism and related traits that influence risk for coronary artery disease

Kevin Laugero, phd | uc davis

stress and nutrition interrelationships, physiological and metabolic underpinnings of inter-individual variability in stress responsiveness, and how this can be used to explain vulnerability or resilience to the negative mental and physical effects of chronic stress

Robert Lustig, md | ucsf

etiology, prevention, and treatment of the current obesity epidemic and the specific role of fructose as a specific mediator of both chronic disease, and continued caloric consumption

Kristine Madsen, MD, Mph | uc berkeley

pediatric obesity, health disparities, policy approaches to reducing cardiovascular disease, physical activity, school health, community-based participatory research

Shira Maguen, phd | ucsf

PTSD, moral injury, women's health, gender differences, suicide, health services, veterans, integrated care, insomnia, disordered eating, obesity, evidence-Based PTSD treatment

Ashley Mason, phd | ucsf

food-craving experiences, reward-based eating, stress-induced eating, ketogenic diet, sleep problems, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, endogenous opioidergic activity, opioidergic blockade

Emeran Mayer, MD, phd | ucla

brain body interactions, with a longstanding focus on brain gut interactions in health and disease

Dieter Meyerhoff, phd | ucsf

cognition, substance abuse, addiction, alcoholism, nicotine dependence, obesity, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, neurogenetics

Aric Prather, phd | ucsf

sleep medicine, psychoneuroimmunology, stress and coping, cell aging

Kimber Stanhope, ms, phd | uc davis

effects of diet on the development of metabolic disease, specifically, the effects of sugar consumption on body composition, lipid regulation and insulin sensitivity

June Tester, md, mph | ucsf

childhood obesity with a focus on the influence of children’s environments on their ability to be physically active and have a healthy diet

Janet Tomiyama, phd | ucla

eating behavior, stress, obesity, dieting, comfort eating, weight stigma, health disparities, health behaviors

Pathik Wadhwa, md, phd | uci

fetal/developmental programming of health and disease risk, behavioral medicine, stress, pregnancy, fetal development, prematurity, neuroendocrine, immune, genetic, epigenetic, telomere biology, maternal-child health, reproductive epidemiology

Janet Wojcicki, phd, mph | ucsf

relationship between sociocultural background, behavioral practices and heath outcomes

Basic Science

Nicholas V. DiPatrizio, phd | uc riverside

neurobiology and physiology that controls food reward, sensory processing, and energy balance

Peter Havel, phd | uc davis

regulation of energy homeostasis and carbohydrate/lipid metabolism, and the involvement of endocrine systems in the pathophysiology of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease

Zachary Knight, phd | ucsf

neurobiology of homeostasis in the mouse, including especially the mechanisms that control hunger, thirst, and body temperature

Suneil Koliwad, md, phd | ucsf

how innate immune cell types in tissues and organs throughout the body sense nutrients, and how this sensory capacity impacts metabolic function under normal conditions and contributes to diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and fatty liver disease

Peter Turnbaugh, phd | ucsf

human gut microbiome, gnotobiotics, metagenomics, nutrition, pharmacology, pharmacogenetics, cancer

Sugar, Stress, Environment, & Weight Initiative

Clinical Science

Basic Science

Health Policy