Qi Sun

At a glance

• Physician and nutritional epidemiologist in the Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
• Works with large cohorts followed for decades, such as the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, in which hundreds of thousands of people report their diet and health.
• Became known for a 2010 study in which replacing white rice with brown rice or whole grains was linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
• Studies how healthy dietary patterns relate to mortality and life expectancy, including in people who have already had a heart attack or another diagnosis (2026).
• Has recently written about fatty acids and cardiovascular disease, and about how certain compounds that gut bacteria make from food affect heart-disease risk.
• Relevant because much general dietary advice — more whole grains, healthy fats, plant-based patterns — rests partly on large long-term studies like these. It remains observational research, though: associations, not strict proof of cause.