Osama Hamdy, M.D., Ph.D., is the founder and medical director of the Joslin Obesity Clinical Program at the Joslin Diabetes Center and the director of inpatient diabetes management and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Hamdy earned his medical and doctoral degrees from Mansoura Faculty of Medicine in Egypt and his fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism from University of Missouri and Harvard University. He is the creator of Joslin Why WAIT program, the world’s first clinical program designed to help patients with diabetes lose weight through a novel multidisciplinary approach.

An international diabetes and weight loss expert, he has chaired the task force that developed Joslin’s nutrition guidelines, is a member of the Nutrition Committee of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Vice-chair of the International Transcultural Diabetes Nutrition Working Group.

Dr. Hamdy studies the cardiovascular benefits of short and long term weight reduction in obese individuals with and without type 2 diabetes. He also studies the role of body fat distribution in initiation and acceleration of cardiometabolic complications of obesity. His clinical research also evaluates the effect of weight reduction on circulating cytokines and body fact distribution. This research led to the first discovery that obese adults who lost 7 percent of their initial weight had significant improvement in their vascular endothelial function. This improvement may eventually prevent the progression of atherosclerosis and the subsequent risk of coronary artery disease and stroke.