Investigating the causal associations of diet and gut microbiome in the development of metabolic disease.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Increased body weight (i.e. obesity) is prevalent not only in the UK but worldwide: 1.9 billion people suffer from overweight and obesity. Obesity often brings along other health conditions like diabetes (422 million people) and heart disease that are responsible for taking the lives of 17.7 million people worldwide every year. Often we think of bad diet and lack of exercise as the main drivers of obesity. But research indicates that other factors like our genes, hormones, immune factors and even the microbes in our gut (i.e. gut microbiome) determine our susceptibility to these conditions by affecting how our body responds to what we eat and how we live. If we can understand how these factors work with each other, we can find ways to prevent and cure obesity and its health consequences. In this project, I will study how our diet and gut microbes are related to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Using genetic methods applied to population cohorts, I will study if diet can change our gut microbes. I will also look at how our gut microbiome changes with obesity, diabetes and heart disease and finally, I will develop mathematical models to predict whether we can use diet to fix our gut microbes such that we can cure or prevent these conditions. I will also find ways to apply my findings for improving the health of general public at-large.