Dr. Christopher Gardner

Biography

For the past 20 years, Christopher Gardner's research has focused on investigating potential health benefits of dietary components and food patterns through randomized controlled trials. His interventions have included vegetarian diets, soy, garlic, omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and popular weight-loss diets. One impactful NIH-funded study, DIETFITS, randomized 609 generally healthy adults to a year-long Healthy Low-Fat or Healthy Low-Carb diet, with key findings published in JAMA 2018. Gardner's research group has expanded to include areas like Stealth Nutrition, which connects food choices to broader issues such as climate change and animal rights. He has initiated collaborations with various institutions, including the Culinary Institute of America, to study ways to maximize the synergy between taste, health, and environmental sustainability. Gardner also leads ongoing studies on the microbiome, including the Fe-Fi-Fo study published in Cell 2021, focusing on the benefits of fermented food consumption in increasing microbial diversity and decreasing inflammatory markers. His long-term vision is to develop the Stanford Food Systems Initiative, aiming to address obesity and diabetes through systemic changes in food systems and diets.

Research Interests

Courses