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Approved research

Risk of type 2 Diabetes and development of disease

Principal Investigator: Dr Jess Tyrrell
Approved Research ID: 761
Approval date: September 19th 2012 | Completion date: January 11th 2019

Lay summary

Type 2 diabetes is a significant health burden worldwide and research is underway to determine how this burden can be reduced. Approximately fifty percent of diabetic patients die prematurely of stroke and heart disease. It is a complex disease, and a greater understanding of the disease is important for improving treatment regimens and public health interventions. The size of the UK Biobank provides a unique opportunity to investigate individuals at the extremes of normal distributions. In this proposal we would like to identify individuals who are at high risk of type 2 diabetes but have not developed the condition, and those who are at low risk of disease who have developed the condition. We will investigate common risk factors (including anthropometric, early life, lifestyle, family history and dietary factors) to identify individuals at the extremes of the normal distribution. We will request funding to extend this work, investigating whether genetic variation has contributed to an individual?s presence within these ?paradoxical? extremes. This specific proposal uses baseline data on the full cohort on measures related to medical conditions and lifestyle factors, anthropometry, early life factors and ethnicity.