Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh (born October 1963) is a US American physician doing research in nephrology, kidney dialysis, nutrition, and epidemiology.
According to this hypothesis, obesity or hypercholesterolemia may counterintuitively be protective and associated with greater survival in certain groups of people, such as elderly individuals, dialysis patients, or those with chronic disease states and wasting syndrome (cachexia), whereas normal to low body mass index or normal values of serum cholesterol may be detrimental and associated with worse mortality.
He is the brother of Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, who is an Australian scientist involved in research in the fields of materials sciences, nanotechnology, and transducers.
He also serves as a part-time staff physician at Tibor-Rubin VA Medical center in Long Beach, California, under the Veterans Health Administration.
Kalantar-Zadeh is the past president of the International Society of Renal Nutrition and Metabolism and the past chair of the international steering committee of the World Kidney Day, and current president of the National Forum of the ESRD Networks, the coalition of the 18 congressionally mandated End Stage Renal Disease Program network organizations since 1978.