Jamy Ard, M.D.
Dr. Jamy Ard, associate professor in both the Department of Nutrition Sciences and the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is the medical director for the Nestlé Healthcare Nutrition OPTIFAST program. Dr. Ard has more than 10 years of experience in clinical nutrition and is able to provide insights and trend information in the field of obesity.
Dr. Ard works closely with the OPTIFAST medical team to enhance current program protocols, guidelines and training curriculum. He is an expert on OPTIFAST medical benefits, product innovation, lifestyle education modules and clinical training. His passion for helping control the growing obesity epidemic is demonstrated by dedication to improving the already successful OPTIFAST program, refining two key components — stimuli narrowing (in this case, limiting food choices) and behavioral therapy.
Dr. Ard’s research interests include behavioral therapies that are focused on cardiovascular risk reduction. He has a special interest in the African-American population and developing strategies for behavior modification that are culturally appropriate for this group. Dr. Ard also has a general interest in coming up with methods that will improve African-American participation and outcomes in clinical trials that deal with cardiovascular disease risk.
In addition to his ongoing research activity, Dr. Ard is medical director of UAB’s EatRight Weight Management Services, which features the OPTIFAST program. In 2007, Dr. Ard was appointed to the role of vice chair for clinical care in the Department of Nutrition Sciences.
Dr. Ard received his medical doctorate and completed internal medicine residency training at Duke University Medical Center. He also received formal training in clinical research as a fellow at the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care at the Durham VA Medical Center. He has been conducting research on lifestyle modification since 1995 and has worked on several National Institutes of Health-funded multi-center trials including Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), DASH-sodium, and Weight Loss Maintenance (WLM) Trial.