She was educated at Loma Linda University Hospital in California where she also received her speciality in Preventive Medicin. She earned a doctorate while working at the Lipid Clinic at the National Hospital in Oslo on the topic of treating familial hypercholestorolemia in children. She is interested in an integrated approach to prevention of cardiovascular disease and has over 120 publications in the fields of lipids, nutrition, smoking cessation and cardiovascular epidemiology. She has led the Norwegian Association for the Study of Obesity from 1999 - 2005 and enjoys lecturing on preventive cardiology for physicians, other professions and the public.