"We are no longer like our ancestors. We no longer depend on our skills as foragers, gatherers, scavengers, hunters and fishers for food. We are only part-time food raisers at best. . . Our biology, on the other hand, has changed far less. Now there is a mismatch between who we are and what we eat. And it is in the gap created by this mismatch that chronic diseases. . . can take root."
John Potter, an award-winning public health researcher, examines the latest research on what causes cancer and other chronic diseases. What is scientists' current understanding of the balance between diet, genes and plain bad luck, and how is the balance shifting? He explores how our adaptation to the diets of our ancestors can be linked to the diseases we experience in the present - and explains what the evidence says we can do about it.
Author Biography
John D. Potter is Chief Science Advisor, New Zealand Ministry of Health, as well as: Professor at CPHR, Massey University, Wellington; Adjunct Professor at University of Canterbury, Christchurch; and Senior Advisor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Washington, both in Seattle, USA. Potter has had an outstanding international research career focussing on nutrition, other environmental and host factors, and genetics in the aetiology and pathobiology of cancer and other chronic diseases. This has broadened to "planetary overload", especially in relation to diet and environmental degradation.
After 5 years of clinical medicine, Potter worked at CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition, Adelaide (1977-1986), completing his PhD and beginning his close partnership with Tony McMichael. Then, in the US, he held increasingly senior posts at the Universities of Minnesota and Washington and FHCRC (including as Director of its Division of Public Health Sciences, one of the largest groups of public-health scientists anywhere).
Potter chaired the international panel that produced Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective (1997). Recent visiting appointments have included the Cambridge Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon. He is founding co-chair of the Asia Cohort Consortium, a collaborative cohort study across Asia of 1.1 million people.
International awards include: India's Gopalan Oration Gold Medal for nutrition science (1996); American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) DeWitt Goodman Lectureship for international leadership in research in nutrition, cancer, and cancer prevention (2000); the US National Cancer Institute Annual Advances in Cancer Prevention Award (2005); AACR-American Cancer Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention (2009); and the 2012 Medal of Honour of IARC.
He is currently PI of CPHR's research study: Comparison of two invitation-based methods for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling with standard recall for usual care among un- and under-screened Maori, Pacific and Asian women: a randomised controlled community trial to examine the effect of self-sampling on participation in cervical-cancer screening as well as participating as an investigator in other studies.
Potter has authored or co-authored more than 690 scientific papers, chapters, and books. His Scopus H-Index is 111 (see http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5439-1500; http://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=35380121900; and http://www.fredhutch.org/en/labs/profiles/potter-john.html)
