Francesco Branca MD, PhD, is invited professor in the Institute of Global Health of Geneva University. His research interest is the impact of food systems on global health, using a One Health approach.
He has been the Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety in the World Health Organization, Geneva and the Regional Advisor for Nutrition in the WHO European Office in Copenhagen. At WHO he developed science-based recommendations on healthy diet and policies for food environment change and global policies for the improvement of nutrition (obesity, wasting, breastfeeding, anemia) and of food safety. He has provided policy advice and technical support to countries, established partnerships with the UN and civil society and engaged with food manufacturers.
Previously, he was a Scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition Research Institute.
He developed research on biochemical markers of bone and on diet and bone health and carried out several nutritional epidemiology projects in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and West Africa.
He has been lecturing at the University of Rome La Sapienza and Tor Vergata and Bocconi University in Milan. He has been an Adjunct Professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science, Tufts University.
Prof. Branca graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases at the Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma and obtained a Msc in Nutrition and a PhD at Aberdeen University.
Selected recent publications
Branca F. Alternatives to animal-source foods for sustainable, equitable, and healthy food systems. Front Sci, 30 September 2025. Volume 3 – 2025. doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2025.1698997
Mendis S, Graham I, Branca F, Collins T, Tukuitonga C, Gunawardane A, Narula J. Alarming Rise of Obesity: The 4th United Nations High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health Should Advance Action to Tackle Obesity. Glob Heart. 2025 Aug 28;20(1):70. doi: 10.5334/gh.1459. PMID: 40894082; PMCID: PMC12396183.
Celletti F, Branca F, Farrar J. Obesity and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists. JAMA. 2025 Feb 18;333(7):561-562. doi: 10.1001/jama.2024.25872. PMID: 39693101.
Branca F, Ursu P, Aguayo V. A plan for accelerated action on obesity. Lancet Glob Health. 2023 Aug;11(8):e1170-e1171. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00257-7. PMID: 37474220; PMCID: PMC10369013.
Rubino F, Cummings DE, Eckel RH, Cohen RV, Wilding JPH, Brown WA, Stanford FC, Batterham RL, Farooqi IS, Farpour-Lambert NJ, le Roux CW, Sattar N, Baur LA, Morrison KM, Misra A, Kadowaki T, Tham KW, Sumithran P, Garvey WT, Kirwan JP, Fernández-Real JM, Corkey BE, Toplak H, Kokkinos A, Kushner RF, Branca F, Valabhji J, Blüher M, Bornstein SR, Grill HJ, Ravussin E, Gregg E, Al Busaidi NB, Alfaris NF, Al Ozairi E, Carlsson LMS, Clément K, Després JP, Dixon JB, Galea G, Kaplan LM, Laferrère B, Laville M, Lim S, Luna Fuentes JR, Mooney VM, Nadglowski J Jr, Urudinachi A, Olszanecka-Glinianowicz M, Pan A, Pattou F, Schauer PR, Tschöp MH, van der Merwe MT, Vettor R, Mingrone G. Definition and diagnostic criteria of clinical obesity. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2025 Mar;13(3):221-262. doi: 10.1016/S2213-8587(24)00316-4. Epub 2025 Jan 14. Erratum in: Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2025 Mar;13(3):e6. doi: 10.1016/S2213-8587(25)00006-3. PMID: 39824205; PMCID: PMC11870235.
Branca F, Chambers T, Sassi F. How to tackle childhood obesity? Evidence and policy implications from a STOP series of systematic reviews. Obes Rev. 2021 Feb;22(2):e13181. doi: 10.1111/obr.13181. PMID: 33462931.
Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T, Vermeulen S, Garnett T, Tilman D, DeClerck F, Wood A, Jonell M, Clark M, Gordon LJ, Fanzo J, Hawkes C, Zurayk R, Rivera JA, De Vries W, Majele Sibanda L, Afshin A, Chaudhary A, Herrero M, Agustina R, Branca F, Lartey A, Fan S, Crona B, Fox E, Bignet V, Troell M, Lindahl T, Singh S, Cornell SE, Srinath Reddy K, Narain S, Nishtar S, Murray CJL. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet. 2019 Feb 2;393(10170):447-492. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4. Epub 2019 Jan 16. Review. Erratum in: Lancet. 2019 Feb 9;393(10171):530. PubMed PMID: 30660336.
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet. 2024 Mar 16;403(10431):1027-1050. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02750-2. Epub 2024 Feb 29. PMID: 38432237; PMCID: PMC7615769
FAO and WHO. 2019. Sustainable healthy diets – Guiding principles. Rome.