The aim of this work is to identify how factors such as your body size, what you eat and drink, and how much exercise you do affect your risk of cancer. This evidence is critical to the development of public health messages for cancer prevention.
We propose to use the UK Biobank to: (i) increase the sample size of work we are leading within the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer (DCPP); (ii) confirm findings from work we conduct using our own research resources in Australia; and (iii) assess whether our findings from (i) and (ii) are supported by direct measurement of biomarkers in blood plasma.
The DCPP was established in 1991 in order to investigate the role in the development of cancer of potential risk factors such as diet and body size. Data collected from high-quality epidemiological studies around the world has been pulled together into a central database to enable this research. This is particularly valuable for research into less common cancers, where no single study is sufficiently large to generate conclusive evidence. Including UK Biobank data in this effort will substantially increase the samples size, and provide better representation of the UK population in this research. We are leading DCPP projects into the causes of bladder, oesophagus and brain cancers.
We also seek to use the UK Biobank data to replicate findings from analyses of our own epidemiological studies, such as the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (MCCS). Replication of findings from single studies is critical to establishing their validity.
Finally, the UK Biobank includes a rich resource of biomarkers measured in plasma, which we aim to use to generate complementary evidence of the role of modifiable risk factors in the development of cancer.