Question: Chronic diseases are formally known as chronic non-communicable diseases. They do not specifically refer to any particular disease, but rather are a general term for a group of diseases that have insidious onset, long course, and persistent and unremitting conditions. Chronic non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular, metabolic, neurodegenerative, respiratory, musculoskeletal, and oncological disorders! represent a major and growing global health burden. These conditions typically manifest with slow onset, prolonged progression, and complex, multifactorial etiologies that remain only partially understood. The lack of clearly defined infectious causes, coupled with the nonlinear interplay between genetic susceptibility, environmental exposures, and lifestyle factors, poses significant challenges to early detection and precision intervention.
Chronic diseases lack clear evidence of infectious biological causes, have complex etiologies, and some of their causes have not yet been fully confirmed. The main reasons why the pathogenesis is still not fully understood to this day are: 1. Multiple genetic and environmental factors are nonlinearly intertwined to form a complex pathological network; 2. Compensation mechanisms mask the early lesion characteristics; 3. There are unknown “critical qualitative change points” in the dynamic regulation of the life system. This leads to fundamental challenges in precise prevention and treatment.
Core Objective:
1. To leverage the full spectrum of UK Biobank resources-including genetic, phenotypic, environmental, imaging, biomarker, longitudinal health data, exposure factors and etc. to systematically elucidate the multifactorial mechanisms underlying chronic diseases and to develop personalized prevention and treatment strategies.
