Dr. Lopez-Jimenez is a Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and staff cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Division at Mayo Clinic. He is the director of the Cardiometabolic Program at Mayo and an active member of the Sleep Disorders and Cardiovascular Diseases’ research group.

Dr. Lopez-Jimenez did his cardiology fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, Florida, and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He also completed advanced training in preventive cardiology at the VA Boston Healthcare System. He graduated from the Clinical Effectiveness Program at Harvard Medical School and obtained his Master’s in Science at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Lopez-Jimenez is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Cardiology and is a reviewer for more than 14 scientific peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of the Obesity Working Group, part of the Council of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism, and has been an active member of the Epidemiology and Prevention Council, both from the American Heart Association. Dr. Lopez-Jimenez has served as an invited reviewer for several scientific review groups from the National Institutes of Health. He has received grant support from the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and several scientific organizations and nonprofit groups. In 2002 he received the “Junior Investigator Award” special distinction given by the American College of Cardiology to one person each year.

His research is focused on the complex relationship between body adiposity, cardiometabolic dysregulation, and cardiovascular disease. His research interests include the cardiometabolic effects of major weight loss achieved with bariatric surgery and the complex relationship between obstructive sleep apnea, metabolic abnormalities, and cardiovascular disease. He has published extensively on the limitations of body mass index and has proposed a concept called “normal weight obesity” that challenges paradigms in the way obesity is currently defined.

Dr. Lopez-Jimenez has more than 100 scientific publications, including invited editorials in highly cited journals like Lancet. He has been invited to be a keynote speaker in numerous national and international meetings and has been frequently featured by the national media on his work on “normal weight obesity” and other studies challenging the clinical utility of BMI and supporting the use of alternative measures of body adiposity.