Mai-Lis Hellenius
Mai-Lis Hellénius, MD, Ph.D., professor in cardiovascular prevention at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Senior consultant at the Lifestyle Clinic at the Department of Cardiology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Mai-Lis Hellénius was born 1953. MD at Karolinska Institutet 1978. Certified specialist in Family Medicine 1985. In 1995 Mai-Lis Hellénius defended her thesis “Prevention of cardiovascular disease, studies on the role of diet and exercise in the prevention of cardiovascular disease among middle aged men.” The thesis was based on a controlled randomized trial and thereby she was among the first in the world to scientifically evaluate advice on lifestyle.
She has for more than 30 years been working both as a clinician, a researcher and a teacher in the area of lifestyle medicine. Mai-Lis Hellénius has 220 publications and 144 of them are publications in peer review journals.
Mai-Lis Hellénius has been the tutor of 14 Ph.D. students who have defended their thesis. All Ph.D. projects have focused lifestyle and prevention. She is currently the supervisor of 3 Ph.D. students.
She has been engaged in the writing of national and Nordic guidelines for diet and physical activity as well as prevention of cardiovascular disease. She is a member of many expert committees and she has been invited speaker at international meetings more than 100 times.
She has written several text books in the area of lifestyle intervention and cardiovascular prevention for a Swedish professional audience. She has also developed a web-based educational program for health care professionals as well as the public, which was launched in 2009 from the Karolinska Institutet.
Mai-Lis Hellénius has also written several popular science books on nutrition, food and a healthy lifestyle. Several of them have been awarded in Sweden and internationally. The book “Solens hälsa” won the Gourmand Cookbook Award in 2013, as Sweden's best book about food and health. The book also won Meal Academy prize the same year as Sweden's best book about food and health. The same book won the Gourmand Cookbook International Award in 2014, as the world's best book about food and health, and was awarded the Dun Gifford's Award.