Approved Research

Metabolome-based subtypes of dyslipidaemia and its association with patient prognoses in the UK Biobank

Lay summary

Dyslipidemia is an abnormal amount or balance of lipids in the blood, which include total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which are often measured in health checks in the community. Recently, more details of blood lipids, such as "lipoprotein subclasses", can be measured by an emerging technology to measure "metabolome" (i.e. small-molecule chemicals, such as "lipoprotein subclasses") in the blood. Among 500,000 people participating in the UK Biobank project with stored blood samples at the time of recruitment, currently 120,000 people have their blood "metabolome" measured by Nightingale Health Ltd., and the data are available for research. Then, the researchers' questions are whether (i) people can be classified into several "clusters" (i.e. groups of people with similar characteristics) with different patterns of lipid-related "metabolome", and (ii) people in the different "clusters" show difference in the future risk of diseases, such as death, cardiovascular disease, and non-cardiovascular disease such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. If people in the different "clusters" showed difference in the future risk of diseases, this would indicate that different strategy of treatment and disease screening may be needed for each group of people with different patterns of lipid-related "metabolome". Therefore, the aim of the current study is to identify "metabolome"-based subtypes of dyslipidaemia and to examine its association with patient prognoses in the UK Biobank. The project duration is planned to be between 2 and 3 years. The researchers believe that the current study would contribute to better understanding of the blood lipid-disease association, promoting personalized medicine according to the subtype of dyslipidaemia, and ultimately improving health and life expectancy of people in the community.