Approved Research

Lifestyles, Environmental Exposures, and Psychological Factors, and Genetic-Environmental Relationships in Aging-Related Diseases

Lay summary

Aging-related diseases are chronic disorders prevalent in older people, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, etc., and caused a majority of global disease burden. Although plenty of observational studies analyzed the associations of healthy lifestyles, environmental exposures, and psychological factors with aging-related diseases outcome, the causal relationships between some of them remain unknown. In addition, considering the common involvement of environmental and genetic factors in aging-related chronic diseases, we also want to explore the interaction between external factors and genetic susceptibility with aging-related diseases. Therefore, we would like to use the genetic data from UK Biobank to establish causal associations of lifestyles, environmental exposures, and psychological factors with aging-related diseases, and test for their gene × environment interactions. The outcomes are expected to provide us novel clue for the prevention of aging-related diseases with great clinical benefits. We anticipate the project duration to be 36 months.