Lawrence Appel

Lawrence J. Appel is an American nutrition researcher, Director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the ProHealth Clinical Research Unit. His primary appointment is as the C. David Molina Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and he holds joint appointments in the Department of Epidemiology and Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Appel received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 1981 and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1989.

Appel joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in 1989, and became the director of their Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research in 2010. He was a member of the United States Dietary Guidelines committees in 2005 and 2010.

Appel's research consists of three different types of studies: controlled feeding studies, behavioral intervention trials, and cohort studies pertaining to chronic kidney disease. In 1997, he was the lead author of the study that coined the term "DASH diet". He has also been credited with convincing the FDA that food companies should be able to put labels on their products saying that potassium has health benefits. In 2014, he published a study that found that a low-glycemic index diet did not improve insulin sensitivity, cholesterol levels or blood pressure compared with a high glycemic-index diet.

Appel was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2012.