George Blackburn, a pioneer in nutrition medicine, dies at age 81
George Blackburn, MD, PhD, a pioneer in nutrition medicine and nutrition education, died on Feb. 20 at age 81.
For 45 years, Blackburn worked in the department of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which announced his death in a news release. Blackburn was also a longtime professor at Harvard Medical School.
Susan Kelly, Blackburn’s wife, told the New York Times her husband died of malignant melanoma.
Blackburn and his colleagues recognized that poor nutrition contributed to a growing number of obese people in the U.S. He was one of the first doctors in New England to perform Roux-en-Y gastric bypass to treat morbidly obese patients, and he developed the first evidence-based guidelines for weight loss surgery, according to the news release.
Blackburn was also the author on more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, edited nine books, served as an editorial board member for several journals and held leadership positions in medical societies.
As the New York Times obituary noted, Blackburn’s five principles for losing weight were published recently in the Harvard Health Letter: make time to prepare healthy meals, eat slowly, consume evenly sized meals beginning with breakfast, do no skimp on sleep and weigh yourself often.
“What really put him and his colleagues on the world map were publications highlighting the inadequate nutritional management of people in the hospital—so-called hospital malnutrition,” Steven Heymsfield, MD, told the New York Times.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.