TUORC Research Projects

We are performing studies to investigate dietary, lifestyle, genetic and metabolomics risk factors for obesity and related diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in large prospective cohorts such as the Nurses’ Health Study, Health Professional Follow-up Study and Bogalusa Heart Study.

We investigate the effects of diet and lifestyle interventions on weight loss and maintenance in randomized clinical trials such as the POUNDS LOST and DIRECT trials, with integration of multi-tiered omics analyses including genomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and microbiome.

We are running studies on genetic susceptibility, diet and lifestyle changes, weight gain and obesity risk in large cohorts such as the Nurses’ Health Study, Health Professional Follow-up Study, Women Health Initiative, Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and etc.

In collaboration with CHARGE consortium, we are running several MR studies:

• Birth Gene (BIG) Study: this project investigates the causal relation between prenatal stressors such as malnutrition and later life cardiometabolic risk
• Diary Gene (DIG) Study: this projects focus on the causal relation between dairy intake and cardiometabolic risk

• The China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB): The CKB cohort was established during 2004-2008, when 512,891 adults aged 30-79 years were enrolled from 10 study areas geographically spread across China
• The Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR): our study focuses on dietary and lifestyle factors affecting healthy aging in Japanese population
• The Tianjin Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Prevention Program: the study include 1180 women who were diagnosed with GDM from 2005 to 2009 and randomly assigned to either a lifestyle intervention or a control group
• Maternal-Infant Health in ACRA (MINA): a birth cohort in the Western Brazilian amazon, with focus on prenatal risk factors for cardiometabolic disorders
• The NUGENOB study, which is a randomized, parallel, two-arm, open label, 10-week dietary intervention comparing the effects of two hypo-energetic diets with either low- or high-fat content, conducted at eighth sites in seven European countries (United Kingdom, The Netherlands, France (two centers), Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark)