William E. Kraus
Preventive cardiologist and exercise physiologist at Duke University who leads long-running trials on how exercise and calorie restriction change human health, and senior author of the CALERIE two-year safety report
Richard and Pat Johnson University Distinguished Professor, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine (since 2017) · Professor of Medicine (since 2006) · Duke Molecular Physiology Institute (since 2013) · MD, Duke University (1982)
Calorie restriction, eating less without malnutrition, slows aging in many animals and lowers mTOR activity. CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy) was the first long trial to test it in healthy, non-obese people. William Kraus is last author of the 2016 report on its safety (ROM2016). Over two years, participants aimed to eat 25% fewer calories. The diet was safe overall, with no rise in serious problems, but bone density fell more than in the control group, so bone health needs watching in anyone who tries long-term restriction.
Kraus earned an MD at Duke University in 1982 and trained as an internist and preventive cardiologist, a heart doctor who focuses on stopping disease before it starts. Kraus has been Professor of Medicine at Duke since 2006 and Richard and Pat Johnson University Distinguished Professor since 2017, and is a member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute and a professor in the School of Nursing. The group combines studies in people with lab work. It asks how exercise changes the body in healthy people, in people at risk such as those with pre-diabetes, and in people with heart disease or heart failure. It also looks for genes that raise the risk of early heart disease and metabolic syndrome, and studies how signals inside skeletal muscle adapt to exercise, heart failure, aging and spaceflight.
Kraus's PubMed record runs to hundreds of papers from Duke on exercise, heart and metabolic health. A 2026 follow-up of STRRIDE, a supervised exercise trial, found that step counts from wearable devices tracked fitness and heart-health measures better than people's own reports of how much they exercised.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | H | Safety of two-year caloric restriction in non-obese healthy individuals ROM2016 Last author of the CALERIE report showing that two years of 25% calorie restriction was safe in healthy non-obese adults, apart from greater bone density loss. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with William E. Kraus.
ShowHide
- Eric Ravussin Human energy-metabolism researcher who studies why people differ in how they burn energy and what long-term calorie restriction does to the body, including in the CALERIE trial.
- Sergei V. Romashkan Physician scientist at the National Institute on Aging who oversees clinical trials in older adults and led the safety analysis of CALERIE, the first long-term trial of calorie restriction in healthy people
Every researcher with a profile →
Thank you. That helps us know which pages have been read by someone who knows the work.
Thank you. We will check it and correct the page.
Thank you. Your answer was counted anonymously.