About
Obesity and related metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease (CVD), are considered to be driven by genetic, environmentaland lifestyle factors, including dietary factors. Although accumulative evidence demonstrates an inverse association between healthy dietary patterns and the risk of obesity, T2D and CVD, there has been substantial and well-recognized within-population heterogeneity in responseto dietary factors, which may partly result from genetic variation and gene-diet interactions. Hence, the explanation of average responses to dietary prevention strategies from previous studies assuming that interventions work ubiquitously in individuals with different genetic makeup can often be misleading. Alternative approaches are warranted to explain disparities of obesity,T2D and CVD risk.To date, large-scale genomewide association studies in Europeans have successfully identified genetic loci robustly associated with risk of obesity, T2D and coronary artery disease (CAD), respectively. These risk alleles, when aggregated into a genetic risk score, can provide a continuous measure ofthe overall genetic susceptibility to obesity, T2D, or CAD. However, whether genetic predisposition to obesity,T2D and CVD could be modified by dietary factors is unclear. Therefore, this proposed project aims to examine i) the associations of different dietary patterns with risk of obesity, diabetes and CVD; ii) to assess the effect of genetic risk scores based on known related loci on the prediction of obesity, diabetes and CVD; ii) to explore potential interactions between dietary patterns and genetic risk scores on risk of developing obesity, diabetes and CVD, respectively. The project has a specific focus on different dietary patterns and obesity-related metabolic diseases, but it will also look at important components of diet patterns, including red meat, fish, dairy products coffee etc. The duration of this project will be 3 years. We expect to identify vulnerable individuals who are more likely to experience a differential response to dietary prevention strategies on obesity, T2D or CVD. This knowledge may then be translated into personalized recommendations aimed at stratifying dietary interventions according to individual's genetic makeup.
14 Publications
Pub ID | Title | Author(s) | Year | Journal |
14562 | A global analysis of dairy consumption and incident cardiovascular disease | Pan Zhuang (+14) | 2025 | Nature Communications |
7724 | Association of Fish Oil Supplementation with Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Individuals with Diabetes and Prediabetes: A Prospective Study in the UK Biobank | Xiaohui Liu (+9) | 2023 | Nutrients |
14448 | Circulating fatty acid profiles impact total, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality in a population-based prospective cohort study | Xiaohui Liu (+11) | 2025 | Clinical Nutrition |
12924 | Circulating fatty acids and risk of severe non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the UK biobank: a prospective cohort of 116223 individuals | Pan Zhuang (+7) | 2024 | Food & Function |
9484 | Circulating fatty acids, genetic risk, and incident coronary artery disease: A prospective, longitudinal cohort study | Pan Zhuang (+9) | 2023 | Science Advances |
8762 | Fish oil supplementation and risk of dementia among diabetic patients: a prospective study of 16,061 older patients | Yin Li (+7) | 2024 | The journal of nutrition, health & aging |
13141 | Fish oil supplementation in relation to the risk of chronic kidney disease among patients with diabetes | Yang Ao (+10) | 2024 | Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism |
8664 | Fried food consumption, genetic risk, and incident obesity: a prospective study | Xuzhi Wan (+7) | 2024 | Food & Function |
12865 | Habitual Daily Intake of Fried Foods Raises Transgenerational Inheritance Risk of Heart Failure Through NOTCH1-Triggered Apoptosis | Anli Wang (+17) | 2024 | Research |
8003 | Healthy dietary patterns and risk of cardiovascular disease in diabetic patients: a prospective cohort study | Xiaohui Liu (+8) | 2023 | Food & Function |
11377 | High fried food consumption impacts anxiety and depression due to lipid metabolism disturbance and neuroinflammation | Anli Wang (+16) | 2023 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
7845 | Potato consumption, polygenic scores, and incident type 2 diabetes: An observational study | Xuzhi Wan (+5) | 2023 | Food Research International |
11214 | The sulfur microbial diet and increased risk of obesity: Findings from a population-based prospective cohort study | Xiaohui Liu (+8) | 2023 | Clinical Nutrition |
13385 | Unhealthy plant-based diet is associated with a higher cardiovascular disease risk in patients with prediabetes and diabetes: a large-scale population-based study | Pan Zhuang (+9) | 2024 | BMC Medicine |