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Kunihiro
Matsushita
,
MD

Professor
Kunihiro Matsushita

Departmental Affiliations

Primary
Division
Cardiovascular and Clinical Epidemiology
School of Medicine
Joint

Contact Info

2024 E. Monument Street, Suite 2-600
Baltimore
Maryland
21287
US        
(410) 367-2384

Research Interests

epidemiology; cardiovascular disease; peripheral artery disease; kidney disease; hypertension; diabetes; obesity; adipokines; risk prediction
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
PhD
Nagoya University
2007
MD
Nagoya University
1998
Overview
Through his clinical experience as an interventional cardiologist, Dr. Matsushita was first interested in diabetes as a key risk factor for coronary heart disease and its antecedent, obesity. Thus, his early research area of interest was epidemiological relationship among insulin resistance, adipokines, inflammatory markers, and cardiovascular risk.
Since he came to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. Matsushita added a kidney angle to his research. Dr. Matsushita has been investigating the associations among kidney, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease associations using the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study and a recently developed collaboration, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Prognosis Consortium (http://www.jhsph.edu/ckdpc).
Dr. Matsushita, as the Director of its Data Coorinating Center, has been also responsible for organizing all consortium activities in the CKD Prognosis Consortium. The Consortium is tasked with compiling and meta-analyzing the best available data to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the impact of CKD on prognosis, with implications for improving clinical guidelines of CKD. The Consortium currently includes >70 cohorts consisting of ~11 million individuals.
Overall, Dr. Matsushita is interested in establishing a bridge between medicine and epidemiological research, contributing to better application of epidemiologic methods to clinical questions to form an evidence-base that can improve treatment and prevention of cardiovascular and kidney diseases.
Honors & Awards
Honors
2005 American College of Physician Membership
2007 Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
2013 Best Reviewers of the Year 2012 of the Annals of Internal Medicine
Awards
2004 Japanese Society of Interventional Cardiology Clinical Research Award
2005 Aichi Foundation for Diabetes, Rheumatic Disease and Gout Research Grant
2006 Takao Fund Travel Award.
2009 Early Career Travel Award from the American Heart Association Council on Epidemiology and Prevention
2009 The Aoyama-Kita Scholarship, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2013 Early Career Best Science Award for Abstract Poster Presentation at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2013
2014 The Sandra Daugherty Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Disease or Hypertension Epidemiology from the American Heart Association
2019 Golden Apple Award for Teaching from JHSPH
Select Publications
Representative publications:
  • Matsushita K, van der Velde M, Astor BC, Woodward M, Levey AS, de Jong PE, Coresh J, Gansevoort RT for the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium. Association of estimated glomerular filtration rate and albuminuria with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a collaborative meta-analysis of 21 general population cohorts.  Lancet. 2010;375:2073-81.
  • Matsushita K, Blecker S, Pazin-Filho A, Bertoni A, Chang PP, Coresh J, Selvin E. The Association of Hemoglobin A1c with Incident Heart Failure among Persons without Diabetes: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Diabetes. 2010;59:2020-6.
  • Matsushita K, Mahmoodi BK, Woodward M, Emberson JR, Jafar T, Jee SH, Polkinghorne KR, Shankar A, Smith DH, Tonelli M, Warnock DG, Wen CP, Coresh J, Gansevoort RT, Hemmelgarn BR, Levey AS for the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium. Comparison of risk prediction using the CKD-EPI equation and the MDRD Study equation for estimated glomerular filtration rate. JAMA. 2012;307:1941-1951.
  • Matsushita K, Coresh J, Sang Y, Chalmers J, Fox C, Guallar E, Jafar T, Jassal SK, Landman GW, Muntner P, Roderick P, Sairenchi T, Schöttker B, Shankar A, Shlipak M, Tonelli M, Townend J, van Zuilen A, Yamagishi K, Yamashita K, Gansevoort R, Sarnak M, Warnock DG, Woodward M, Ärnlöv J; CKD Prognosis Consortium. Estimated glomerular filtration rate and albuminuria for prediction of cardiovascular outcomes: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2015;3:514-25.
  • Matsushita K, Ballew SH, Coresh J, Arima H, Ärnlöv J, Cirillo M, Ebert N, Hiramoto JS, Kimm H, Shlipak MG, Visseren FLJ, Gansevoort RT, Kovesdy CP, Shalev V, Woodward M, Kronenberg F; Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium. Measures of chronic kidney disease and risk of incident peripheral artery disease: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2017;5:718-728.
Projects
Weight Loss with Bariatric Surgery and Changes in Vascular Property
National Trend and Predictors of Critical Limb Ischemia Hospitalizations
Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study