Bernd Löwe - Biography#

Bernd Löwe, MD, is Full Professor and Head of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany. He previously held clinical and academic appointments at the University Hospitals in Heidelberg, Germany, and Indianapolis, USA. He is board-certified in internal medicine as well as psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, and additionally trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist.

Professor Löwe’s research focuses on the interaction of somatic and psychological factors in various medical conditions, including gastroenterological, cardiac and infectious diseases, as well as functional somatic syndromes and somatic symptom disorders. His work has substantially advanced the conceptualisation and treatment of persistent somatic symptoms, including a landmark contribution published in The Lancet (2024, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00623-8). He is spokesperson of the DFG-funded Research Unit 5211 “SOMACROSS” (since 2021), which investigates mechanisms and cross-condition treatment approaches for persistent somatic symptoms. Löwe has developed and validated several internationally recognised psychometric instruments, including self-report questionnaires for anxiety (GAD-7), somatic symptom severity (SSS-8) and psychological distress related to somatic symptoms (SSD-12).

Dr Löwe has also been instrumental in founding several local, national and international research groups, such as EURONET-SOMA, a collective of European scientists dedicated to improving the diagnosis and treatment of persistent somatic symptoms. He has published over 700 scientific articles and book chapters, with approximately 100,000 citations (Google Scholar).