The leading causes of disease and death across the globe are obesity, coronary heart disease and strokes and type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, some tantalizing research indicates that Alzheimer disease can be thought of as diabetes in the brain that is characterized by sugar dysregulation. These major diseases have a strong genetic component and therefore identifying those at high risk promises to help prevent them.
But the precise genetic risk for these diseases are very complex involving both common and rare genetic variants. GB Healthwatch has developed a comprehensive genetics-based risk score for these diseases that take a comprehensive view of genetics and lifestyle factors and we are hoping to validate our algorithms using the most comprehensive genetics database ever conceived – the UK BioBank. This project should take 2 years to complete and will help us test, refine and retest our algorithms. By the end of these 2 years, GB Healthwatch should have a clinically-validated comprehensive genetics-based risk assessment tool that can identify people at high risk of these diseases.
