Arne Astrup

Arne Vernon Astrup (born 1 August, in Frederiksberg, 1955) is a Danish nutritionist, chief physician, researcher, author and professor. He is known as a researcher, communicator and author and has published more than 950 scientific articles. In 2018 he was internationally recognised as Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics, a distinction awarded to researchers whose papers rank in the top 1 percent by citations for their field and publication year. In 2024 he received the American Society for Nutrition's George Bray Outstanding Scientific Achievements Award in Obesity Research, which recognises a significant lifetime contribution to the field.

Astrup's research group developed and validated methods for assessing appetite and food intake in humans, including visual analogue scales for subjective appetite sensations. In 1998, a study carried out at the Research Department of Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in collaboration with Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen reported that intravenous infusion of GLP-1 increased satiety and reduced food intake in healthy men, and concluded that GLP-1 may play a physiological role in regulating appetite and energy intake in humans. An independent review of GLP-1 research cites the study as early human evidence that GLP-1 reduces appetite and food intake, a finding linked to the later development of GLP-1 receptor agonists for obesity.

Astrup was also a named co-inventor, with Holst and four other named inventors, on a 1996 patent application filed by Novo Nordisk concerning the use of GLP-1 peptides to suppress appetite or induce satiety. He has described this research as part of the scientific rationale for later GLP-1-based obesity medicines, including Novo Nordisk's semaglutide products marketed as Ozempic and Wegovy.

From 1990 to 2020 he was head of the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the Faculty of Science at the University of Copenhagen. In the fall of 2016, the department was ranked by the internationally recognised Shanghai Ranking as the world's leading research environment in its field. From 2020 to 2025 he was Senior Vice President, a, Obesity and Nutritional Sciences, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation. He left the foundation on 1 August 2025. Since then he has been an independent consultant and a board member of several international companies, including Eolo Pharma. He was also a member of the board of the Centre for Childhood Health, to which he was appointed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. He is a senior consultant at Copenhagen University Hospital – Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, where he was earlier chief consultant at the unit for clinical nutrition research.

Education and early career

Astrup completed his medical studies at the University of Copenhagen in 1981. In 1986, he received his medical doctorate (Dr. med.) for his dissertation on metabolism in humans. Subsequently, he continued his training as a specialist in Internal medicine. He was at the final stage of his specialist training when he became head of the Danish Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in 1990.

Career and recognitions

Arne Astrup has achieved national and international recognition since the 1990s. He is known for being one of the most cited researchers in the world. His work in the intersection between industry and academia has resulted in several controversies that have made his name publicly known in the wider Danish population.

Arne Astrup's research

Arne Astrup has a background in nutrition research, where he has worked with both experimental physiological and biochemical research as well as clinical treatment trials with subjects and patients. His scientific work has contributed to the understanding of human appetite regulation and energy metabolism, which has led to insights into adipose tissue deposition and body weight.

GLP-1 as a satiety hormone in humans

In collaboration with Professor Jens Juul Holst, he discovered that GLP-1 acts as a satiety hormone in humans. This discovery has played a key role in the development of GLP-1 drugs for the treatment of obesity, which has contributed to the success of Novo Nordisk A/S and their drug Wegovy. Astrup, together with Holst, Anne Flint and Anne Raben, subsequently investigated GLP-1's effects on appetite and food intake in humans. In a placebo-controlled, randomized, blinded crossover study, 20 healthy men received intravenous infusions of synthetic GLP-1 or saline; GLP-1 infusion increased subjective satiety and reduced spontaneous energy intake at a subsequent ad libitum lunch by approximately 12 percent compared with placebo. The authors' affiliations show the work as a collaboration between two Copenhagen research groups: Flint, Raben and Astrup were based at the Research Department of Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Frederiksberg, while Holst, a physiologist specialising in gut hormones, was based at the Department of Medical Physiology at the University of Copenhagen's Panum Institute. Astrup writes that the study's test meals were prepared and the feeding trial was conducted in his department, that Holst contributed expertise in GLP-1 physiology and hormone measurement, and that the body of work involved the scientists, dietitians and technicians of his own department together with collaborating scientists from other laboratories, including Holst. The 1998 paper's funding acknowledgment states that the study was supported by the Danish Research and Development Program for Food Technology and the Danish Medical Research Council, and that Holst's contribution was separately supported by the Danish Biotechnology Program.

Flint and Raben were, at the time, Astrup's PhD student and postdoctoral researcher respectively; Astrup has credited them, together with other former PhD students and postdocs in his department, for their contributions to this and related research. The study built on methodology the group had been developing over the preceding years, including a visual analogue scale (VAS) protocol for measuring subjective appetite that Astrup, Flint, Raben and John Blundell had validated in an earlier study, and Astrup has separately acknowledged the department's dietitians and kitchen staff, who prepared the standardized test meals used in these studies.

Astrup has written that he and Holst first discussed, in 1994, the idea that GLP-1 might also mediate meal-induced satiety, and jointly designed the study that followed; he has described it as the first study to demonstrate a physiological role for GLP-1 in appetite regulation and energy intake in humans. Other groups reported human GLP-1 infusion studies on food intake in the same period, with differing results, which Astrup attributes partly to limited statistical power and low infusion rates. [9] A later review of the GLP-1 field describes the 1998 infusion study among the human findings linking GLP-1 to reduced food intake, a link that led to the development and approval of the first GLP-1 receptor agonist for obesity. Journalist Ole Hall's 2026 history of Novo Nordisk describes Astrup's laboratory as having hosted one of the early human GLP-1 experiments in Denmark in the 1990s, and presents accounts of the research from both Astrup and Holst.

The development of longer-acting GLP-1 analogues suitable for clinical use, and their formulation into approved medicines such as liraglutide and semaglutide, was carried out over the following two decades by pharmaceutical researchers at Novo Nordisk and other companies.

Arne Astrup has published numerous scientific articles in recognized international journals such as The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Nature and New England Journal of Medicine. In 2018, he was included in the Web of Science list of the world's most cited scientists.

Throughout his career Astrup has also been a dedicated supervisor for 42 PhD students and has contributed to research through an interdisciplinary perspective since his student days.

Patent

On 12 November 1996, Novo Nordisk A/S filed a priority patent application titled "Use of GLP-1 Peptides," naming Arne Vernon Astrup, Jens Juul Holst, Liselotte Bjerre Knudsen, Lars Thim, Martin Edward Judge and Birgitte Schjellerup Wulff as inventors. The application was published internationally as WO1998020895A1 and granted in Europe as EP0941114B1. It claimed the use of GLP-1(1-45), or an analogue or fragment thereof, in the preparation of a medicament for peripheral administration to suppress appetite or induce satiety. Astrup has written that he receives no royalty or other payments from this patent.

Criticism and controversies

Astrup has faced criticism for combining his research responsibilities with personal economic interests on several occasions. For instance, he held a dual role with the company NeuroSearch, acting as an advisor and owning stocks while publicly endorsing the company's diet pill in his column, "Doktor Slank" ("Doctor Skinny"). This raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Following the negative publicity, Astrup sold his shares in Neurosearch, which were valued at approximately DKK 200,000. He maintains that he was able to keep his professional and personal interests separate.

Career after academia

After eight years (2012–2020) as the head of the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen — during which the department was ranked the world's leading research environment in its field by the Shanghai Ranking — Arne Astrup left the position on 1 July 2020 as he was appointed Senior Vice President and Head of the Obesity and Nutritional Sciences department at the Novo Nordisk Foundation where he led a national initiative on childhood obesity prevention. Arne Astrup is a member of the Foundation's Executive Leadership Team.

Awards and honours

Arne Astrup has received a number of Danish and international awards throughout his career, including:

Authorship

Arne Astrup has published several books together with other authors such as Claus Meyer, Christian Bitz, Mads Fiil Hjorth and others.

References