Dr. Juan B. Ochoa, MD, FACS, FCCM

Expert Publications

• Arginine availability, arginase, and the immune response.
• Regulation of arginase expression by T-helper II cytokines and isoproterenol.
• Patient safety: effect of institutional protocols on adverse events related to feeding tube placement in the critically ill.
• Citrulline can preserve proliferation and prevent the loss of CD3 zeta chain under conditions of low arginine.
• Interactions between fatty acids and arginine metabolism: implications for the design of immune-enhancing diets.
• A rational use of immune enhancing diets: when should we use dietary arginine supplementation?
• T lymphocytes.
• CD11b+/Gr-1+ myeloid suppressor cells cause T cell dysfunction after traumatic stress.
• Advances in surgical nutrition.
• Arginine and immunity.
• How many calories are necessary during critical illness?
• Separating pharmaconutrition from classic nutrition goals: a necessary step.
• Effect of calorically dense enteral nutrition formulas on outcome in critically ill trauma and surgical patients.
• Use of a colorimetric carbon dioxide sensor for nasoenteric feeding tube placement in critical care patients compared with clinical methods and radiography.
• Effect of citrulline and glutamine on nitric oxide production in RAW 264.7 cells in an arginine-depleted environment.

Media Releases

Get to know Trauma Surgeon Dr. Juan B. Ochoa, who serves patients in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Specializing in critical care medicine, Dr. Ochoa is a board-certified trauma surgeon who completed his training in Medellin, Colombia, which was the epicenter of essentially of the “Drug Wars.” During that time, injuries and trauma were an everyday event. 

Having had a lifelong passion for the power of nutritional therapy to transform lives, he currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer of Nestlé Health Science North America. After years of studying the active ingredients in IMPACT Advanced Recovery Drink and using it in his surgical patient population, he decided to join Nestlé Health Science to help raise awareness among surgeons about the benefits to surgery and trauma patients.

“Growing up, my mother worked as a biochemist and my father was a pediatric surgeon, so I almost lived at the medical school and hospital. I actually had my first communion in the hospital. I remember doing rounds with my father when I was very, very young. Viewing every minute as a teachable moment, my father told me the story of how nutritional therapy helped his patients recover from surgery. I was fascinated by the whole idea that you could feed somebody a different type of food and that you could save lives by doing that,” stated Dr. Ochoa. 

A native of Colombia, he came to the United States to pursue his interests in basic research. He was the first to demonstrate that excessive nitric oxide production in humans could explain the hemodynamic instability of sepsis. After earning his Medical Degree from Pontifical Bolivarian University in Medellín, Colombia in 1982, Dr. Ochoa went on to complete his residency in general surgery and his fellowship in surgical critical care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. 

Thereafter, he decided to take the challenge of becoming an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Kentucky, where he continued his independent research on nitric oxide production in trauma and surgery patients. In 2001, he was invited back to the University of Pittsburgh, where he continued his clinical practice as Professor of Surgery and Critical Care and rose through the ranks to become the Associate Director for Trauma Services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. While sustaining an active clinical practice, he continued to maintain the National Institute of Health-funded research in the area of arginine metabolism during critical illness.

In addition to being a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the doctor is board-certified in both surgery and surgical critical care by the American Board of Surgery (ABS). The ABS is an independent, non-profit organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded for the purpose of certifying surgeons who have met a defined standard of education, training, and knowledge.

In regards to his professional achievements, Dr. Ochoa has published over 100 manuscripts, including chapters and peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals. In 2008, he was interviewed by Ms. Jean Marx in SCIENCE, the journal, with regards to the discovery of arginine destruction by myeloid cells. His work has been essential at defining arginine deficiency as a cause of immune dysfunction in several illnesses, including surgery, trauma, and certain cancers.

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