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

体重增加（即肥胖）不仅在英国，而且在全世界都很普遍：19亿人患有超重和肥胖。肥胖通常会带来其他健康问题，如糖尿病（4.22亿人）和心脏病，这些疾病每年导致全球1770万人死亡。我们常常认为不良的饮食和缺乏锻炼是肥胖的主要原因。但研究表明，其他因素，如我们的基因、激素、免疫因素，甚至我们肠道中的微生物（即肠道微生物组），通过影响我们的身体对我们的饮食和生活方式的反应，决定了我们对这些疾病的易感性。如果我们能理解这些因素是如何相互作用的，我们就能找到预防和治疗肥胖及其健康后果的方法。在这个项目中，我将研究我们的饮食和肠道微生物与肥胖、糖尿病和心脏病的关系。我将使用应用于人群队列的遗传方法，研究饮食是否可以改变我们的肠道微生物。我还将研究我们的肠道微生物群是如何随着肥胖、糖尿病和心脏病而变化的，最后，我将开发数学模型来预测我们是否可以通过饮食来修复我们的肠道微生物，这样我们就可以治愈或预防这些疾病。我还将设法将我的发现应用于改善广大公众的健康。

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.