Susanna Y. Huh, MD, MPH

Research Overview

The goal of my research is to identify modifiable dietary and behavioral risk factors in early life associated with childhood health outcomes, particularly obesity and cardiometabolic risk. Since 2005, I have been a co-investigator for Project Viva, an NIH-funded pre-birth longitudinal cohort of mother-child dyads that provides the main database for my research.  Within Project Viva, I have led epidemiologic analyses relevant to perinatal nutrition, child body composition and blood pressure, including: examining associations of child dairy intake with adiposity; prenatal protein intake and cord blood glucocorticoids with child blood pressure; and the timing of solid food introduction in infancy with risk of obesity.  I am the principal investigator for an NIH-funded study examining the relationship between maternal-fetal vitamin D status and child adiposity, insulin resistance and blood pressure.  We plan to further study this association within an ongoing randomized multi-center trial of high dose vitamin D supplementation among pregnant women.

About Susanna Huh

Dr. Huh is board-certified in both pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition. She obtained her medical degree at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She completed a clinical and research fellowship in the Harvard Medical School Program in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, and obtained her Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard School of Public Health.  Dr. Huh is an attending physician in the Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Children’s Hospital Boston and an Instructor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School.  In addition to practicing general pediatric gastroenterology at Children’s Hospital Boston, she directs the Growth and Nutrition Program, a multidisciplinary program offering diagnosis and treatment for children with failure-to-thrive and feeding difficulties.  She is also Associate Director for the Clinical Nutrition Service, a multidisciplinary team that provides hospital-wide consult services for inpatient nutrition assessment and management.  Dr. Huh has served on the Training and Nutrition Committees for the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN).  She is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the Mothers’ Milk Bank of New England.

Key Publications

• Huh SY, Rifas-Shiman SL, Kleinman KP, Rich-Edwards JW, Lipshultz SE, Gillman MW.  Maternal protein intake is not associated with infant blood pressure.  International Journal of Epidemiology 2005; 34(2):378-84.
• Huh SY, Andrew R, Rich-Edwards JW, Kleinman KP, Seckl JR, Gillman MW.  Association between umbilical cord glucocorticoids and blood pressure at age 3 years. BMC Medicine 2008; 6:25.
• Huh SY, Gordon CM. Vitamin D deficiency in children and adolescents: epidemiology, impact and treatment.  Rev Endo Metab Dis 2008; Jun;9(2):161-170.
• Huh SY, Feldman HA, Cox, J, Gordon CM. Prevalence of transient hyperphosphatasemia among healthy infants and toddlers. Pediatrics 2009; 124(2):703-9.
• Huh SY, Rifas-Shiman S, Rich-Edwards JW, Taveras EM, Gillman MW.Prospective association between milk intake and adiposity in preschool age children. J Am Diet Assoc 2010; 110(4):563-70.
• Huh SY,* Rifas-Shiman SL,* Oken E, Taveras EM, Gillman MW. Timing of solid food introduction and risk of obesity in preschool age children.  Pediatrics 2011; 127(3):e544-51. *These authors contributed equally to this work and hold shared first authorship.
• Gordon C, Gordon L, Snyder BD, Nazarian A, Quinn N, Huh S, Giobbie-Hurder A, Neuberg D, Cleveland R, Kleinman M, Kieran M.  Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria is a Skeletal Dysplasia. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 2011; 26(7):1670-9.