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Jose Atilio Canas, M.D., FAAP, FACE

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Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has named Jose Atilio Canas, M.D., FAAP, FACE, as director of endocrinology & diabetes.

Canas is working to enhance care for children with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and strengthen diabetes prevention services. He will see patients on the main campus in St. Petersburg and at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Outpatient Care, Sarasota.

“I’m very interested in furthering our work on the cardiovascular risks to individuals with diabetes,” Canas says. “Physicians have traditionally been concerned with the risks of blindness and renal failure. As we’ve made progress on those fronts, we’re focusing more on the potential cardiovascular effects.”

Canas brings three decades of training and practice in endocrinology to his role at Johns Hopkins All Children’s. He was previously associate attending at Wolfson Children's Hospital, and served as medical director of the Nemours Pediatric Cardio Metabolic and Bariatric Center in Jacksonville, Florida. He also was an associate professor of pediatrics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

Before that, he became director of the pediatric diabetes program in Winthrop University Hospital in 2001. He was then clinical associate in pediatric endocrinology at Nemours Children’s Clinic beginning in 2004.

His research interests also include the use of carotenoids—plant pigments found in yellow, orange, red and green vegetables that may help prevent the buildup of visceral fat deposits in humans—for cardiometabolic and diabetes prevention. He most recently led a study on the effects of carotenoids on obesity in children, which was published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism and was recently featured in the 2018 Pediatric Endocrinology Thematic Issue of the Endocrine Society. 

“Johns Hopkins All Children’s vision of helping children reach their full potential in all aspects of health and well-being is one that I share,” Canas says. “The opportunity to join the hospital team, especially at a time when Johns Hopkins All Children’s is expanding with the opening of the new Research and Education Building, is completely in line with my research interests and clinical goals for enhancing patient outcomes.”

Canas earned his medical degree from Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Urena in the Dominican Republic. He completed his pediatrics residency and served as chief resident at Nassau County Medical Center. There he also completed a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric endocrinology and metabolism.