Michele Mietus-Snyder, MD

Preventive Pediatric Cardiologist
Cardiovascular Consultant to the WATCH Clinic, UCSF

Dr. Michele Mietus-Snyder is a preventive cardiologist and Associate Professor in the UCSF Departments of Pediatric Medicine and Physiological Nursing. She received both her undergraduate and MD degrees from UC San Diego and did her Pediatrics residency and Pediatric Cardiology fellowship training at The Children’s Hospital, Boston, Harvard Medical School. Her interest in the molecular pathways responsible for early, preclinical, pediatric atherogenesis led her to pursue basic science research on lipoprotein gene regulation at Harvard and at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease Research. Her studies of redox-sensitive genes important in early heart disease impressed upon her how many cardiovascular risk factors function via common metabolic pathways that promote vascular oxidative stress, including dyslipidemia, unhealthful diet, sedentary lifestyle, hypertension, and psychosocial stress. The growing epidemic of childhood obesity places children at heightened risk for early atherosclerotic disease through all of these pathways. Dr. Mietus-Snyder has become increasingly interested in clinical research to advance our understanding of ways to reverse environmental triggers for atherosclerotic disease. She consults clinically in pediatric weight management with the UCSF WATCH (Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health) clinic and the Children’s Hospital Oakland HEALthy HEARTS preventive cardiology clinic. She is committed to the development of a comprehensive multidisciplinary weight management program that can meet the needs of inner city children at highest risk for both obesity and for its adverse metabolic consequences. Dr. Mietus-Snyder’s current clinical research projects explore 1) the role of stress in the manifestation of the metabolic syndrome in pediatric obesity, and 2) the role played by micronutrient deficiencies of a typical calorie replete, nutritionally depleted American diet in the inflammatory comorbidities of obesity. These efforts are all aimed at the identification of feasible, effective, preventive health strategies that can be adopted not as an acute intervention, but as a lifelong ethic for heart-healthy living.