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MRC Epidemiology Unit

Unit Media Coverage

A selection of the coverage our research has recently achieved in the news is below.
For all our latest news, visit www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/news

Media interested in covering any of our research should contact comms@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk

Jump to: 2023 – 2022 – 2021 –2020 – 2019 – 2018 – 2017 – 2016

Genes with strong impact on menopause timing also link to cancer risk – September 2024

Analysis of genomic data from more than 100,000 women in the UK Biobank has identified four genes with some of the largest known effects on the timing of menopause discovered to date. The work, led by scientists at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Exeter Medical School, and Wellcome Sanger Institute found that women who only have one working copy of the four new genes identified they go through menopause between two and 5.5 years earlier than average.

The researchers found also identified a fifth gene variant that causes women to go through menopause over a year later than average, and additionally that changes in this gene cause predisposition to various cancers in both men and women. Using data from the 100,000 Genomes project the team found that mothers with a high number of genetic variants that cause earlier menopause had on average more new changes in the DNA they passed onto their children, possibly because these genes are involved in repairing DNA damage, so when this function is compromised more new genetic changes accumulate in the eggs.

Children switch to walking and cycling to school after introduction of London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone – September 2024

Research led by scientists at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Queen Mary University of London found that four in ten children in Central London who travelled to school by car switched to more active modes of transport, such as walking, cycling, or public transport, following the introduction of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). In the comparison area with no ULEZ, Luton, only two in ten children made this switch over the same period.

First author Dr Christina Xiao commented that

The introduction of the ULEZ was associated with positive changes in how children travelled to school, with a much larger number of children moving from inactive to active modes of transport in London than in Luton. Given children’s heightened vulnerability to air pollution and the critical role of physical activity for their health and development, financial disincentives for car use could encourage healthier travel habits among this young population, even if they do not necessarily target them.”

Red and processed meat consumption associated with higher type 2 diabetes risk, new study in two million people finds – August 2024

An analysis of data from nearly 2 million people in 20 countries arround the world found that meat consumption, particularly processed meat and unprocessed red meat consumption, is associated with a higher type 2 diabetes risk.

The research, led by Dr Chunxiao Li and colleagues at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, used the InterConnect project to analyse individual participant data from the diverse studies, rather than published results, and 18 of the 31 studies included in this analysis had not previously published findings on the link between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes.

The researchers found that the habitual consumption of 50 grams of processed meat a day is associated with a 15% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next 10 years, while the consumption of 100 grams of unprocessed red meat a day was associated with a 10% higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

Blood proteins predict the risk of developing more than 60 diseases – July 2024

Research on thousands of proteins measured from a drop of blood demonstrates the ability of proteins to predict the onset of many diverse diseases for the first time.

The research which was carried out as part of an international partnership between GSK, Queen Mary University of London, University College London, University of Cambridge, and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and led by Dr Julia Carrasco Zanini Sanchez, Dr Robert Scott, and Professor Claudia Langenberg.

They report the ability of protein ‘signatures’ to predict the onset of 67 diseases including multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, motor neurone disease, pulmonary fibrosis, and dilated cardiomyopathy. This work will deepen understanding of human biology and disease, and the researchers plan to build on it to improve the prediction of disease in th clinical setting, and the development of new therapies.

Ultra-processed food makes up almost two-thirds of calorie intake of UK adolescents – July 2024

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are food items that are manufactured from industrial substances and contain additives such as preservatives, sweeteners, colourings, flavourings, and emulsifiers, and have been suggested as one of the key drivers of the global rise in diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

A new analysis of data from nearly 3,000 adolescents in the UK NDNS finds that they consume around two-thirds of their daily calories from UPFs, though there was a slight fall from 68% to 63% between 2008/09 and 2018/2019.

The research, led by scientists from the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol, found that UPF consumption was highest among adolescents from deprived backgrounds, those of white ethnicity, and younger adolescents.

Sugar intake fell in children and adults after announcement of UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy – July 2024

An analysis of 11 years of data from the UK NDNS has found that daily free sugar intake fell by around 5 g in children and by around 11 g in adults following the announcement of the UK’s Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) in 2016. This fall was additional to pre-existing downward trends in the intake of dietary free sugar in adults and children.

The SDIL was introduced in a bid to persuade manufacturers to reformulate their products, and the analysis by Dr Nina Rogers and colleagues found that decreased sugar from soft drinks alone made up over half the total decline in free sugar consumption they observed.

Largest ever genetic study of age of puberty in girls shows links with weight gain – July 2024

A study of the DNA of 800,000 women from Europe, North America, China, Japan and South Korea identified more than 1,000 genetic variants that can influence the age at which girls have their first period.

About 600 of the gene variants were observed for the first time, and researchers used this knowledge to generate a genetic score that predicted whether a girl was likely to hit puberty very early or very late.

The MRC Epidemiology Unit-led research team also analysed rare genetic variants that are carried by very few people, but which can have large effects on puberty.

Inside the bold project to find your menopausal age – and reverse it – April 2024

Dr Stasa Stankovic, a recent PhD student with our Unit, discussed her genomics research into the prediction of early menopause with Noa Leach for BBC Science Focus.

Rare gene variants conferring up to 6-fold increase in obesity risk hint at new mechanism affecting appetite control – April 2024

A study co-led by scientists at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and MRC Metabolic diseases Unit has identified genetic variants in two genes – BSN and APBA1 – that have some of the largest impacts on obesity risk discovered to date.

The reasons why some people are more prone to weight gain are incompletely understood, though previous research has identified several obesity-associated gene variants conferring large effects from childhood. These act through the leptin-melanocortin pathway in the brain, which plays a key role in appetite regulation.

However, while both BSN and APBA1 encode proteins found in the brain, they are not currently known to be involved in the leptin-melanocortin pathway. In addition, unlike the obesity genes previously identified, variants in BSN and APBA1 are not associated with childhood obesity.

This has led the researchers to believe that they may have uncovered a new biological mechanism for obesity, different to those we already know for previously identified obesity gene variants. By shedding light on previously unrecognised aspects the neural biology of obesity, this discovery may in future help scientists to identify new drug targets to treat obesity.

AI predicts healthiness of food menus and highlights ‘double burden’ of unhealthy food environment in deprived areas – March 2024

Unit PhD student Yuru Huang and colleagues used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the healthiness of cafe, takeaway and restaurant menus at outlets across Britain.

Earlier research has shown that the more an individual eats food prepared out of home,the poorer the quality of their diet and the higher their body weight. In the UK more deprived neighbourhoods also tend to have more fast food outlets. Some outlets will have healthier menus than others, but little is known about whether there are differences between neighbourhoods in their healthiness.

Huang and colleagues used an AI ‘deep learning’ model, trained on a subset of JustEat data, to predict menu healthiness of every out-of-home food outlet in Britain. To demonstrate that the model works they didn’t just test it against another set of JustEat data, but also checked it against real menus from outlets in Cambridge and Peterborough.

The predicted menu healthiness score for almost 190,000 food outlets enabled them to map UK local authorities with the most & least healthy food environments, and identify a “double burden” of unhealthy food faces by people living in more deprived areas.

Study in 135 countries finds school uniform policies linked to students getting less exercise – February 2024

A study in >1 million 5-to-17-year-olds across 135 countries finds that school uniform policies could be restricting young people from being active, particularly primary school-aged girls. The World Health Organization recommends children should get at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day. Many children don’t meet this target, and regardless of uniform policies, across most countries fewer girls than boys do.

The researchers led by Dr Mairead Ryan found that in primary school students the gap in activity between girls and boys was wider in countries where most schools mandated uniforms (9.8%) than those that didn’t (5.5%). The same result was not found in secondary school-aged students.

They suggest this may be because younger children get more incidental exercise such as running and climbing throughout the school day than older students. Girls may feel less comfortable engaging in such active play when wearing uniforms such as skirts or dresses. The researchers say that there is now enough evidence to warrant further investigation into whether or not school uniform policies contribute to lower activity levels.

Fenland mobile app study finds feeling depressed linked to short-term increase in bodyweight – January 2024

New research by Dr Julia Mueller and colleagues has found that people living with overweight or obesity are more vulnerable to weight gain after experiencing increased feelings of depression.

The researchers examined data from >2,000 adults participating in the Fenland Covid-19 study who completed digital questionnaires on mental wellbeing & bodyweight every month for up to nine months using a mobile app developed by Huma.

They found increases in symptoms of depression were associated with increases in bodyweight one month later, though this effect was only observed in those individuals with overweight or with obesity. The increase was not seen in those individuals with a BMI below 25kg/m2. The findings suggest that monitoring and addressing depressive symptoms in individuals with overweight or obesity could help prevent further weight gain and be beneficial to both their mental and physical health.

Working with pupils at an Ipswich School to help improve young people’s physical and mental health – December 2023

Unit PhD student Lauren Cross was interviewed by BBC Radio Suffolk and other local newspapers about the research she is undertaking with pupils at Northgate High School in Ipswich to provide better evidence to help all young people to be healthier, focusing on student’s mental health and managing weight. Students at Northgate High School were also interviewed about their experience of taking part in the research, and their motivations for getting involved.

Speaking with the BBC about her research Lauren said:

There is no point in designing an amazing intervention which works in theory, but when you put it in a school setting, it doesn’t reach the people you want it to be supporting.

That’s exactly why we’ve teamed up with the students at Northgate – we’re chatting to them, not as research participants, but as research advisers.”

UK soft drinks levy linked to fall in child hospital admissions for tooth extraction – November 2023

The UK soft drinks industry levy introduced in 2018 may have reduced the number of under 18s having a tooth removed due to tooth decay by 12%.

Research published by Dr Nina Rogers and colleagues in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health suggests that the fall in hospital admissions may have saved more than 5,500 hospital admissions for tooth decay alone and the largest reductions were in children aged up to nine years old.

The authors conclude that their study “provides evidence of possible benefits to children’s health from the UK soft drinks industry levy beyond obesity which it was initially developed to address.”

Distances to the nearest 24/7 accessible automated external defibrillator are greater in more deprived neighbourhoods of England and Scotland – August 2023

Unit scientist Dr Thomas Burgoine is first author on a paper published in the journal Heart which found that in England and Scotland, but not in Wales, the distances to the nearest 24/7 accessible automated external defibrillator were greater in more deprived neighbourhoods. Using data from The Circuit: the national defibrillator network, the researchers calculated the average road distance to a defibrillator with 24/7 public access in Great Britain’s 1.7 million postcodes, and studied the relationship between the distance to a defibrillator and an area’s level of deprivation.

Identifying novel sex- and age-specific gene variants that influence obesity risk – August 2023

A Cell Genomics paper by Unit PhD student Lena Kaisinger and colleagues identified novel protein-coding sex- and age-gene-specific variants in more than 400K UK Biobank participants which have large effects on obesity risk. Their findings highlight the importance of considering sex-specific & life-course effects in the genetic regulation of obesity, and identify a potential role for DNA damage response in regulating body size. 

Research challenges current thinking on the genetic causes of very early menopause – June 2023

An analysis of UK Biobank genetic data found that nearly all women with gene variants thought to cause very early menopause went through it at an older age.

Variants in any one of more than 100 genes were thought to cause premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), and under current guidance a variation in one of these genes is cause for clinicians to consider a genetic diagnosis of POI. The new results indicate this needs to be reconsidered as premature menopause is caused by a combination of variants in many genes, and non-genetic factors.

Unit researcher Dr Stasa Stankovic noted they did identify a few genetic variants that had a subtle impact on reproductive longevity, for example women carrying variants in TWNK & SOHLH2 genes experienced menopause up to three years earlier than the general population, and they will continue to use human genomics research to better understand the biology of reproductive aging.

DNA discovery highlights how we maintain healthy blood sugar levels after meals – June 2023

A study of the DNA of more than 55,000 people worldwide has shed light on how we maintain healthy blood sugar levels after we have eaten, with implications for our understanding of how the process goes wrong in type 2 diabetes. The findings could help inform future treatments of type 2 diabetes.

Insulin resistance in muscle and fat tissue after eating may be key to development of type 2 diabetes, but most genetic studies of insulin resistance have focused on the fasting state when insulin is largely acting on the liver.  An international team of scientists led by Professor Stephen O’Rahilly, Dr Daniel Fazakerley & Dr Claudia Langenberg used genetic data from >55,000 non-diabetic participants in 28 studies to look for key genetic variants that influenced insulin levels measured two hours after a sugary drink.

They identified 10 regions of the genome associated with insulin resistance, with ight of these regions also associated with elevated risk of type 2 diabetes. One region located within the gene that codes for GLUT4, the critical protein responsible for taking up glucose from the blood into cells after eating. Studies in mouse cell lines of genes at the other 9 insulin resistance loci then identified 14 genes that play a role in GLUT 4 trafficking and glucose uptake. Less GLUT4 on the cell surface results in poorer ability to remove glucose from the blood.

Which interventions to encourage us to eat more healthily work best? – June 2023

Professor Martin White was interviewed by Rachel Burden on BBC Radio 5 Live on which interventions to encourage us to eat more healthily work best. The interview was part of a week-long series examining the health impact of ultra-processed food.

Biomarkers improve evaluation of Mediterranean diet health benefits – April 2023

Unit PhD student Jakub Sobiecki and colleagues developed a new blood test to detect whether someone follows a Mediterranean diet. Earlier research suggests people following a Mediterranean diet have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, but that link has been uncertain due to the subjectivity of self-reported diets, so the authors sought to develop an objective biological indicator of adherence to the diet.

No one biomarker can predict the Mediterranean diet, so they derived a composite score by analysing blood samples from an Australian trial where participants were assigned at random to follow either their usual diet or the Mediterranean diet for 6 months.

The researchers applied their composite biomarker score the EPIC observational study, which included >9,000 Europeans who developed type 2 diabetes, as well as a control group, and found that those whose biomarker score indicated greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, using the biomarker score identified a stronger link between the Mediterranean diet and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes than EPIC study participants self-reported diets, suggesting that past self-report-based studies may have under-estimated the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet.

Nanny statism fears behind UK’s 30-year failure to tackle obesity – April 2023

Dr Dolly Theis, a visiting scientist with our Population Health interventions programme, was quoted in a Guardian article on a new report on obesity policy published by the Institute for Government (IfG).

In her comment Dr Theis said:

Some governments have done much more than others. But the IfG is right that a general desire to avoid accusations of nanny statism, a lack of understanding about the issue, and a lack of political prioritisation have all contributed to this chronic policy failure”

Cityzens for Clean Air demonstrate a precision approach to activism – April 2023

Professor Tolullah Oni, who leads the Unit’s Global Diet and Physical Activity Research Group, was quoted in a Guardian article on the Cityzens for Clean Air campaign which recruited citizen scientists measure to air quality while running in Lagos, Cape Town & Accra.

Professor Oni is a founder of Cityzens for Clean Air through the UrbanBetter platform which seeks to mobilise individuals, communities and organisations for healthy sustainable urban environments.

Beverage choice and health outcomes in type 2 diabetes – April 2023

In a BMJ editorial Unit nutritional epidemiologist Professor Nita Forouhi discussed new research on the link between sugar-sweetened beverages and type 2 diabetes, and argues evidence from the new study supports recommending people with type 2 diabetes to change from sugary drinks to drinks most likely to have health benefits such as coffee, tea, water, and low fat milk.

Discussing DEBEAT Study following Cambridge Festival talk ‘What really influences what young people eat?’ – March 2023

Unit researcher Dr Eleanor Winpenny was interviewed by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and the i newspaper following the promotion of the Cambridge Festival talk ‘Growing up in a changing environment – What really influences what young people eat?’.

Science journals update guidelines after study highlights incomplete reporting of complex interventions – March 2023

Unit researchers have joined colleagues to call on scientific journals to amend their submission guidelines, after their analysis identified numerous research studies evaluating complex interventions that had been published with crucial information missing.

This follows an earlier analysis they published in 2022 which reviewed reports from trials evaluating new school-based programmes to increase the amount of children’s physical exercise, which found that almost all of these reports left out key details about how teachers had been trained to deliver the interventions. The team subsequently found that more than 98% of these studies failed to include information specified by a checklist of the minimum list of recordable items required to ensure that findings can be used and replicated.

They then contacted the senior editors of each of the journals in which these studies were published and asked them to update their guidelines. 27 of the 33 have responded, with seven having updated their guidelines, and the others still in discussion with their editorial teams and publishers.

Genetic variants influencing human fertility identified in study of nearly 800,000 individuals – March 2023

Unit scientists Dr Felix Day and Professor John Perry, with colleagues at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Universities of Oxford, Pennsylvania and Groningen, used data from nearly 800,000 UK Biobank participants to identify variants in 43 regions of the human genome associated with reproductive success, defined as the number of children ever born to an individual.

These variants influence both reproductive biology & human behaviour, and the researchers found that there are some trade-offs across the life-course, an example being the gene ARHGAP27. Variations altering the protein it produces were associated with having more children, but also a shorter lifetime window of fertility.

By integrating modern & ancient genome data, they also identified a region of the human genome that’s been influenced by natural selection for thousands of years, and is still under selection today.

Daily 11 minute brisk walk enough to reduce risk of early death – February 2023

Analysis of data from more than 30 million people by research team led by Unit researchers Dr Soren Brage and Dr James Woodcock found that one in ten early deaths could be prevented if everyone managed at least half the 150 minutes moderate-intensity activity a week recommended by the NHS.

The researchers found that outside of work-related physical activity, two out of three people reported activity levels below 150 min per week of moderate-intensity activity, and fewer than one in ten managed more than 300 min per week.

For those doing more 150 min per week of moderate-intensity activity, additional benefits in terms of reduced risk of disease or early death were marginal. But even half this amount had real benefits. Just 75 min per week brought a 23% lower risk of early death, and the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers is also reduced.

Identification of disease-causing proteins leads to new potential treatments for diseases like diabetes – February 2023

Analysis of 1,180 blood samples from the EPIC-Norfolk study using a new approach combining antibody-based protein analysis and GWAS (Genome-wide association studies) has identified hundreds of proteins that might contribute to the onset of common, chronic metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes.

The research opens the door to more targeted and ultimately successful options for the prevention and treatment of disease.

Sugary drinks tax may have prevented over 5,000 cases of obesity a year in year six girls alone – January 2023

The introduction of the soft drinks industry levy – the ‘sugary drinks tax’ – in England was followed by a drop in the number of cases of obesity among older primary school children. Taking into account current trends in obesity, this suggests that around 5,000 cases of obesity per year may have been prevented in year six girls alone.

In April 2018, the UK governments introduced the soft drinks industry levy, targeted at manufacturers of the drinks to incentivise them to reduce the sugar content of soft drinks and the amount of sugar in diets – particularly the diets of young people. MRC Epidemiology Unit researchers tracked changes in the levels of obesity in children in England in reception year and year six between 2014 and 2020. The team found that the introduction of the sugar tax was associated with an 8% relative reduction in obesity levels in year six girls, equivalent to preventing 5,234 cases of obesity per year in this group alone.

Lessons for decentralised studies from high levels of engagement with Fenland COVID-19 study app – January 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated interest in the use of remote health monitoring for patient care and also for research – where it’s often becoming harder to recruit and retain participants. Unit scientists, in collaboration with Huma Therapeutics Limited, undertook research in over 2,250 participants in the Fenland COVID-19 study exploring how digital technologies can support population research. The study examined the potential to identify people infected in the pre-symptomatic phase of Covid using information collected remotely, and to measure effects of Covid restrictions on health-related behaviours such as diet, physical activity, wellbeing and mental health.

Their results showed that participants had high, sustained engagement with a smartphone app that collected information including health related measurements. Out of this experience we’ve developed a checklist for mobile health engagement in population-based studies.

Fitness levels can be accurately predicted without strenuous exercise using wearable devices – December 2022

VO2max is the capacity of the body to carry out aerobic work and a key measurement of overall fitness, is an important predictor of heart disease and mortality risk. While measurement of VO2max is considered the “gold standard” of fitness tests, measuring it currently requires expensive equipment like a treadmill or exercise bike, and strenuous exercise that can be risky for some individuals.

Using physical activity data from more than 11,000 participants in the Fenland Study who wore devices that measured their heart rate and movement, scientists from the Unit and University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology developed a new method that uses machine learning to predict VO2max during everyday activity. Their method doesn’t need the person whose fitness is being evaluated to undertake strenuous activity, so it is safer and can potentially be used with far larger numbers of people.

Mums’ activity levels may depend on number and ages of children – November 2022

New analysis of data from the Southampton Women’s Survey by Unit PhD student Rachel Simpson and Dr Kathryn Hesketh has found that less than half of mums meet the recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and that mothers of younger children manage to do the least.

The research showed that women with school-aged children did on average around 26 mins of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, whereas mothers with only younger children managed around 18 mins per day. The number of children was also a factor, having more than one child meant mothers managed only around 21 mins of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, but mums with multiple children all under five years old did more light intensity activity than those with only children of school-age.

Detecting the undetected: measuring levels of three proteins in the blood can aid detection of undiagnosed prediabetes – November 2022

Medical and behavioural interventions are effective in delaying or preventing type 2 diabetes onset in people with prediabetes, but a substantial proportion are missed by current clinical screening techniques. Individuals with isolated impaired glucose tolerance (isolated IGT), a common type of prediabetes, can only be identified through oral glucose tolerance testing, which is not routinely performed as part of type 2 diabetes clinical screening strategies.

By analysing the levels of nearly 5,000 different proteins in blood plasma samples from more than 11,000 Fenland Study participant, each of whom underwent an oral glucose tolerance test, a team of scientists led by Professor Claudia Langenberg identified a three-protein signature in the blood that can improve detection of isolated IGT. Incorporating testing for this signature may substantially reduce the number of individuals who need to undergo oral glucose tolerance testing to identify an isolated IGT, helping to both improve the health of affected individuals and to alleviate the burden to health-care systems caused by their delayed diagnosis.

Change in depressive symptoms may predict change in BMI – November 2022

Unit researcher Dr Julia Mueller spoke with Healio about new research she presented at the Obesity Week conference in San Diego investigating the association between changes in depressive symptoms and changes in body weight.

Wearable device study in 88,000 people shows the heart health benefits of more intense physical activity – October 2022

Increasing physical activity of any intensity is known to be beneficial for health, but a research team new led by Dr Paddy Dempsey of the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Professor Tom Yates of the University of Leicester wanted to find out if there is a greater reduction in cardiovascular disease risk when more of that activity is of at least moderate intensity. Physical activity intensity and duration is hard to recall accurately, especially when it comes to low intensity every day activities like housework or shopping, so the authors analysed wrist-worn accelerometer-measured physical activity data from more than 88,000 UK Biobank participants.

They found that, as expected, the total amount of physical activity a person does was strongly associated with a decrease in the risk of heart disease or stroke. But they also found that getting more of the total physical activity volume from moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was associated with a substantial additional reduction in cardiovascular risk. In other words, intensity of exercise does matter for health.

Poor professional development may explain failure of push to promote physical health in primary schools – October 2022

Schools have been the focus of the majority of government policies and researcher-led interventions aiming to increase children’s physical activity levels. However, the best available evidence suggests that they have largely failed to achieve their desired outcomes. To investigate the reasons for these disappointing outcomes, researchers led by Mairead Ryan and Dr Esther van Sluijs of the MRC Epidemiology Unit  reviewed evidence from 19 countries to determine what staff training has been provided within the interventions, and then explored if specific training features were associated with either teachers implementing the new initiative as intended or an increase in student physical activity.

They identified specific training features which made it more likely that an intervention would be delivered to students as intended, including clear goals to work towards, the opportunity to practice the new teaching technique, regular evaluation and feedback, and resources such as sports equipment. Unfortunately these key ingredients for success were often missing from the training the teachers received.

Proteogenomic analysis explains why some people suffer more from COVID-19 than others – September 2022

A team of scientists led by Dr Claudia Langenberg and Dr Maik Pietzner of the MRC Epidemiology Unit and  Professor Christian Conrad of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) have found genes and proteins that contribute to a higher risk of severe COVID-19.

They found that COVID-19 patients carrying a variant in the gene that encodes the transcription factor  ELF5 were more much more likely to be hospitalized and ventilated, however because ELF5 may have actions in many parts of the body it is unlikely to be a promising target molecule for drug development. They did identify another protein, G-CSF, which serves as a growth factor for blood cells. COVID-19 patients who genetically produce more G-CSF tend to experience a milder disease course, and because synthetic G-CSF is already in clinical use for other conditions it may be possible to repurpose it as a treatment for COVID-19 patients.

Nearly of half of six-year-olds in Britain don’t meet daily physical activity guidelines – August 2022

An analysis led by Unit scientists Dr Kathryn Hesketh & Dr Esther van Sluijs finds that only 53% percent of six-year-olds met recommended daily guidelines for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

The team from the universities of Cambridge and Southampton analysed data from 712 children in the Southampton Women’s Study who each wore accelerometers for an average of 6 days showed that at age six, they were sedentary for a daily average of more than 5 hours, and engaged in more than 7.5 hours of low-level and just over 1 hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

BBC Radio 4 Food Programme – Reformulation – a fix for the obesity crisis? – August 2022

Dr Jean Adams discussed how health risks of processed foods might be managed through reformulation with the BBC Food Programme. She points to drive to reduce salt in processed food in the late 1990’s and 2000’s and the more recent Soft Drinks Industry Levy (aka the sugar tax) as successful approaches that can be extended to some highly processed foods, but notes that the food technology problem is a lot more difficult for the ingredients to other processed food, so that other strategies may be needed.

BBC Radio 4 Food Programme – Birmingham’s Food System Revolution – June 2022

Professor Martin White did a pre-recorded interview with Jaega Wise for BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme episode “Birmingham’s Food System Revolution”, broadcast on 19 June 2022, in which he discussed how the Mandala Consortium he leads aims to transform Birmingham’s foodsystem and its relationship with the West Midlands regional economy.

One in 500 men carry extra sex chromosome, putting them at higher risk of several common diseases – June 2022

A new analysis of UK Biobank data led by researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and University of Exeter has found that the great majority of the one in 500 men with an extra X or Y chromosome are unaware of it, despite the increased risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis & thrombosis.

Yajie Zhao, a PhD student at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said:

Even though a significant number of men carry an extra sex chromosome, very few of them are likely to be aware of this. This extra chromosome means that they have substantially higher risks of a number of common metabolic, vascular, and respiratory diseases – diseases that may be preventable.”

Dr Raghib Ali reveived OBE for Services to NHS – June 2022

We’re delighted to learn that our colleague Dr Raghib Ali has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to the NHS and the COVID-19 pandemic response.

During the pandemic Dr Ali combined his research with working as a volunteer in NHS hospitals, and contributed to the quarterly reports on progress to address COVID-19 health inequalities as an expert advisor on COVID-19 and ethnicity.

Covid lockdown blamed for deaths of more than 3,000 diabetics – May 2022

An analysis co-led by Unit Director Professor Nick Wareham of data from the annual National Diabetes Audit found that the lack of diabetes checks following the first Covid lockdown in 2020 may have resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people.

Those with diabetes are supposed to undergo regular health checks to detect cardiac problems, infections and other changes, but the researchers found that a move to remote forms of healthcare delivery and a reduction in routine care processes meant some of the most crucial physical examinations did not take place during the 12 months following the first lockdown.

Reducing TV viewing to less than one hour a day could help prevent more than one in ten cases of coronary heart disease – May 2022

An analysis of data from more than 370,000 UK Biobank participants led by Unit scientist Dr Katrien Wijndaele and  Dr Youngwon Kim of the University of Hong Kong (a former Unit research fellow) found that watching too much TV is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) regardless of an individual’s genetic makeup.

Their results did indicate that up to 11% of cases of coronary heart disease might be prevented if people watched less than an hour of TV each day. In contrast, leisure time spent using a computer did not appear to influence CHD risk, which may be because individuals using their computer may be more likely to break up their activity or to snack less, or be related to the time of day when they use the computer.

Dr Kim commented:

Our study provides unique insights into the potential role that limiting TV viewing might have in preventing coronary heart disease. Individuals who watch TV for less than one hour a day were less likely to develop the condition, independent of their genetic risk.

Limiting the amount of time sat watching TV could be a useful, and relatively light touch, lifestyle change that could help individuals with a high genetic predisposition to coronary heart disease in particular to manage their risk.”

The authors caution that they haven’t proven a causal link between TV watching and CHD, and that UK Biobank isn’t fully representative of the UK population.

COVID-19 Study demonstrates potential for at home blood sample collection – May 2022

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, our researchers wanted to measure blood samples from participants in the Fenland Study cohort for antibodies to assess previous COVID-19 infection.

With home visits not being possible, the only feasible option was for people to take their own blood sample. Many people find the usual finger prick method painful, and it’s not always reliable due to contamination or insufficient blood being collected. So we used a new OneDraw Blood Collection Device from Drawbridge Health for remote blood sample collection.

Calorie labelling on menus in the UK – April 2022

On 6 April 2022 new rules requiring chain restaurants, cafés, and takeaway shops in the UK – but not independent fast-fool outlets – to display the caloric content of food, soft drinks, and some low-alcohol drinks came into effect.

Unit PhD student Dolly Theis (Population Health Interventions) was interviewed by the Grocer and Medical News Today about the potential impact of the new rules.

Both reports also referenced the PLOS One paper ‘Differences in energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with versus without voluntary menu labelling: A cross-sectional study’ Dolly published with colleague Dr Jean Adams in 2019.

UK Biobank study shows brisk walking may slow biological ageing process – April 2022

An analysis of genetic data from more than 400,000 adults in UK Biobank has revealed a clear link between walking pace and a genetic marker of biological age. The research led by Unit scientist Dr Paddy Dempsey and researchers at the University of Leicester found a causal link between walking pace and leucocyte telomere length (LTL) – an indicator of biological age – the Leicester-based team of researchers estimate that a lifetime of brisk walking could lead to the equivalent of 16 years younger biological age by midlife.

Commenting on this evidence from wrist-worn wearable activity tracking devices used to measure habitual physical activity, Dr Dempsey :

This suggests measures such as a habitually slower walking speed are a simple way of identifying people at greater risk of chronic disease or unhealthy ageing, and that activity intensity may play an important role in optimising interventions. For example, in addition to increasing overall walking, those who are able could aim to increase the number of steps completed in a given time (e.g. by walking faster to the bus stop). However, this requires further investigation.”

Times article on the Association Between Physical Activity and Risk of Depression – April 2022

Dr Matthew Pearce and Dr Søren Brage of our Physical Activity Epidemiology programme and Dr James Woodcock of our Public Health Modelling programme led a systematic review of 15 prospective studies including more than 2 million person-years which has found that relatively small doses of physical activity are associated with substantially lower risks of depression.

The paper published in JAMA Psychiatry found that compared with adults not reporting any activity, those accumulating half the recommended 4.4 mMET hours physical activity had 18% lower risk of depression, while those accumulating recommended volume of 8.8 mMET hours per week had 25% lower risk. However, levels of physical activity beyond the recommend level were not associated with additional reduction in depression. The authors recommend that health practitioners should therefore encourage any increase in physical activity to improve mental health.

ITV Anglia – Cambridgeshire school pilots ‘no-car zone’ – March 2022

Dr Jenna Panter of our Population Health Interventions programme was interviewed by ITV Anglia News on a no-car zone piloted at Cambridge primary school. Her interview featured in ITV Anglia news bulletin broadcast on 25 March 2022, and she was quoted in the accompanying online news article.

Metabolomic study links inhaled cortical steroid treatment for asthma to adrenal suppression – March 2022

By analyzing the blood plasma of 14,000 individuals from four independent study cohorts, an international research team co-led by Dr Claudia Langenberg identified 17 steroid metabolites that were reduced in individuals with asthma and found that, even among patients taking low-dose ICS, ICS usage was associated with reduced cortisol levels.

In the Nature Medicine paper reporting their results, the researchers also found significant associations between adrenal insufficiency symptoms, including fatigue and anemia, in asthma patients taking ICS treatment compared to those who were not.

Reduced reproductive success is associated with selective constraint on human genes – March 2022

The Welcome Sanger Institute issued a press release for the Nature paper whose first author was Dr Eugene Gardner of our Early Life Aetiology and Mechanisms programme (the work was done while he was at the Welcome Sanger Institute ).  The paper reported how the identification of genetic variants that are associated with markedly reduced reproductive success, primarily owing to increased childlessness, with a stronger effect in males than in females. they found that this childlessness is probably mediated by genetically associated cognitive and behavioural traits, which may mean that male carriers are less likely to find reproductive partners.

The authors wrote that while this genetic association may only account for a very minor fraction of the overall likelihood of being childless (less than 1%),  compared to more influential sociodemographic factors, it may influence how genes evolve over time.

Business Weekly – Swede dreams as Cambridge backs advance in proteomics – March 2022

This Business Weekly article discussed how the team led by Dr Claudia Langenberg use the Olink platform at the TATAA Biocenter, and quoted PhD student Julia Carrasco Zanini Sanchez of our Aetiology and Mechanisms programme, who spoke at the launch of the Olink Explore 3072 proteome profiling service in Gothenburg.

Channel 4 – Who Made Britain Fat? – March 2022

Phd student Dolly Theis from our Population Health Interventions programme was interviewed on obesity policy with Dr Michael Moseley for the Channel 4 documentary ‘Who Made Britain Fat?’, and discussed why 689 UK Government policies have failed to halt the rise in obesity.

Seeing is believing when it comes to health risk and behaviour change – March 2022

New meta-analysis published in PLOS Medicine by Dr Gareth Hollands and colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Public Health and Primary Care and MRC Epidemiology Unit finds using medical imaging technologies that visualize health may discourage risk-related behaviours more than non-visual information.

Professor Simon Griffin from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, a senior author on the paper, commented on how visual information helps motivate patients to behave in a healthier way.

Most studies suggest that provision of information about disease risk in verbal or written format does not lead to sustained changes in health-related behaviours. However, this review suggests that sharing the results of medical imaging appears to be a more effective motivator of behaviour change.”

Planning for Action – February 2022

The University of Cambridge published a fascinating article about how our evidence and free online tools are helping planners design exercise into our towns and cities.

By studying the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway and other travel infrastructure projects Dr Jenna Panter, Dr David Ogilvie and colleagues demonstrated how changing the built environment can be effective in increasing people’s activity levels. This has impacted on transport policy in UK & globally, promoting active travel to increase physical activity. Unit researchers also developed resources such as the Integrated Transport and Health Impact Modelling Tool for researchers & policy makers.

The Propensity to Cycle Tool developed by Dr James Woodcock and colleagues allows planners to visualise potential for cycling in any UK region, from whole cities to individual roads. Following Department of Transport recommendations, PCT has already been used by 81 local authorities across England to plan and invest in cycle networks & identify interventions to promote cycling. As well as improving health, this could reduce CO2 emissions by more than 55,000 tonnes per year.

Transport for London’s junk food advertising restrictions linked to reductions in high fat, salt and sugar product purchases – February 2022

A study published in PLOS Medicine found that restricting the outdoor advertising of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods and drinks across the Transport for London (TfL) network significantly decreased the average amount of calories purchased by households every week from these products.

Led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the research team that included Unit scientists Dr Jean Adams, Dr Thomas Burgoine, Dr Oliver Mytton and Professor Martin White, the study used data on nearly two million grocery purchases of HFSS foods and drinks to estimate the effect of the policy, which saw restrictions on advertising implemented across the London transport network in February 2019.This includes the London Underground, the TfL Rail network, and  bus stops.

They found the policy was associated with an estimated 1,001 kcal (6.7%) decrease in average weekly household purchases of energy from HFSS products compared with what would have happened without the policy. Most strikingly, the average weekly purchases of energy from chocolate and confectionary fell by 317.9 kcal (19.4%).

Combining proteomics techniques reveals importance of protein structure to health – November 2021

In a study undertaken in more than 10,000 individuals, an international research team led by scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridgehave shown that integrating information derived from different technologies to measure proteins can identify otherwise hidden links between proteins and human health and disease.

The researchers also identified examples in which the results of the two proteomic assays for the genetic relationship of a protein with a particular phenotype, for example a disease, differed. The researchers attributed such effects to the differences in the affinity of the two technologies for what they called ‘proteoforms’. The term proteoform describes proteins that differ in their shape or function due to common genetic variation that either changes single amino acids in the protein sequence or leads to multiple changes in the protein sequence by altering the genetic template that is used to encode the protein.

How our brain uses nutritional state to regulate growth and age at puberty – November 2021

An international scientific team, led by researchers from the MRC Epidemiology Unit and the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, have discovered how a receptor in the brain, called MC3R, detects the nutritional state of the body and regulates the timing of puberty and rate of growth in children and increases in lean muscle mass.

These findings, published in the journal Nature, may explain how humans have been growing taller and reaching sexual maturity earlier over the past century, and identifies the mechanism that links adequate nutritional body stores to reproductive maturity right across the animal kingdom. In addition to its importance to child development and reproductive health, this discovery suggests that drugs that selectively activate MC3R may help reverse the loss of lean muscle mass, and resultant frailty, that is associated with many chronic diseases..

This collaborative research involved researchers with a range of specialisms, and included large scale genetic analysis in the half a million volunteers in UK Biobank,  follow-up analysis in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, Fenland and EPIC-Norfolk studies, and experiments in cell and animal models.

Filling the gaps: connecting genes to diseases through proteins – October 2021

Hundreds of connections between different human diseases have been uncovered through their shared origin in our genome by an international research team led by MRC Epidemiology Unit scientists Dr Maik Pietzner and Dr Eleanor Wheeler, challenging the categorisation of diseases by organ, symptoms, or clinical speciality.

In a paper published in Science the team generated data on nearly 5,000 circulating proteins in Fenland Study participants, and combined this with genetic data to demonstrate that natural variation in more than 2,500 regions of the human genome is very robustly associated with differences in abundance or function of at least one of nearly 4,000 proteins circulating in the blood.

While genome-wide studies have identified thousands of DNA sequence variants associated with human disease, the underlying mechanisms are often poorly understood due to uncertainties in mapping those variants to genes. Linking disease-related DNA variations to the abundance or function of a specific protein provided strong evidence that the gene encoding that protein is involved, allowing the researchers to identify novel candidate genes for several diseases.

The researchers produced a gene-protein-disease map of 1,859 connections showing how genetic differences that affect these proteins link together seemingly diverse as well as related diseases, discovering more than 1,800 examples where variations in an individual gene and its protein products are involved in more than one disease. The authors have made their data available to the research community on the Omicscience platform.

Obesity Health Alliance report published – September 2021

On 28 September the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 organisations and experts working together to reduce obesity by influencing Government policy, published its new report ‘Turning the Tide: A 10-year Healthy Weight Strategy’. The report, whose working group included Unit Professor Martin White, made a series of recommendations on which Government policies should be kept and intensified, recommended new policies that can be implemented now, and identified areas where new policies need to be developed.

Young adults at highest risk of weight gain – September 2021

Research published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, found that Young adults aged 18 to 24 are at the highest risk of becoming overweight or developing obesity in the next decade of their life compared to adults in any other age group, and obesity prevention policies should target this group.

The researchers looked at anonymised primary care health records from more than 2 million adults in England between 1998 and 2016 to investigate the risk of weight changes at different ages and among different groups. They found that people aged 18 to 24 were four times more likely to become overweight or develop obesity over the next 10 years than those aged 65 to 74.

Dr Claudia Langenberg from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, a co-senior author on the paper, said:

Young people go through big life changes. They may start work, go to university or leave home for the first time – the habits they form in these years may stick through adulthood. If we are serious about preventing obesity, then we should develop interventions that can be targeted and are relevant for young adults.”

Human metabolism peaks, levels off, and then declines as we age – August 2021

On Friday 13 August Unit Physical Activity Epidemiology programme leader Dr Søren Brage was interviewed by Dave Webster on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire about a new paper in the journal Science reporting that human metabolism peaks at one year, declines gradually until age 20 when it levels off until age 60, when it starts to decline more rapidly. Dr Brage discussed how this research – which he wasn’t directly involved in – used the gold-standard doubly labeled water method to measure total daily energy expenditure in >6,000 people in 29 countries, and the importance of physical activity in maintining energy balance and avoiding unhealthy weight gain. Dr Brage was also quoted in an article on BBC News online.

Early adulthood education and employment experiences play independent role in later life cardiovascular health – August 2021

Research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health by scientists from the University of Cambridge, University of Bristol and UCL Social Research Institute found that education and employment experiences in early adulthood contribute to cardiovascular health inequalities in later life, independent of occupation and family income in mid-adulthood.

The researchers analysed health and socioeconomic data collected over several decades from over 12,000 members of the 1970 British Birth Cohort, and found that those who spent longer in education, going on to professional or managerial roles during early adulthood, had better cardiovascular health more than 20 years later. Importantly this wasn’t just because of a higher income or higher level job at age 46.

Dr Eleanor Winpenny from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, who is lead author on the paper, commented:

We found that an individual’s education and employment experiences in early adulthood had a far larger impact on measures of cardiovascular health more than twenty years later than their occupation or income at that time did.

These results suggest that we need to provide more support for young adults to allow healthy development into middle age and prevent disease in later life. Given the added disadvantage to young adults as a result the current coronavirus pandemic, there is an urgent need to understand and mitigate the effect these circumstances may be having on their future health.”

Researchers identify new genes linked to longer reproductive lifespan in women – August 2021

An international research collaboration involving more than 180 research institutions, co-led by Dr John Perry at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, has increased the number of gene variations known to influence reproductive lifespan in women from 56 to 290.

The research, published in Nature, involved a genome-wide association study of age at natural menopause in data from more than 200,000 women of European ancestry from several studies including UK Biobank, and from 23andMe customers who opted-in to participate in research. They also examined data from nearly 80,000 women of East Asian ancestry, and found broadly similar results.

Many of the genes identified involved in processes of DNA repair, including genes from two cell cycle checkpoint pathways – CHEK1 and CHEK2. Knocking out a CHEK2 so that it no longer functions, and over-expressing CHEK1 to enhance its activity each led to an approximately 25 per cent longer reproductive lifespan in mice.

The genes identified by this work influence the age at natural menopause, and the authors hope they can be used to help predict which women are most likely to have menopause at a young age. They also examined health impacts of having an earlier or later menopause using Mendelian Randomization, a method that uses measured variation in genes of known function to examine the impact of specific risk factors, finding genetically earlier menopause was linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes and fractures, but to a lower risk of some cancers, such as ovarian and breast cancer.

Dr Perry commented:

This research is incredibly exciting. Although there’s still a long way to go, by combining genetic analysis in humans with studies in mice, plus examining when these genes are switched on in human eggs, we now know a lot more about human reproductive ageing. It also gives us insights into how to help avoid some health problems that are linked to the timing of menopause.”

Unit researchers contribute to Lancet series highlighting need to improve physical activity worldwide – July 2021

Researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit were among scientists from across the world contributing to The Lancet 2021 series on physical activity, which was launched with a seminar attended by participants from 79 countries.

Key findings revealed in the series included that worldwide progress to improve physical activity has stalled with overall deaths associated with inactivity remaining at more than 5 million people per year, people living with disabilities are 16-62% less likely to meet physical activity guidelines, and that Olympic Games remain a missed opportunity to increase physical activity in host countries.

Dr Esther van Sluijs of our Behavioural Epidemiology programme led a global analysis which showed  that 80% of school-going adolescents are failing to meet the WHO recommended guidelines of 60 minutes of physical activity per day, with little progress made since 2012.

Dr Jenna Panter of our Population Health Interventions programme was one of the authors on a commentary that examined how d esigning and planning activity-promoting cities can help prevent premature mortality, reduce the high costs associated with physical inactivity, and help countries achieve some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr van Sluijs was interviewed on BBC Newsround  and Newstalk, and quoted in articles in the Times, Irish Independent, Metro, Yahoo News, UPI, SwissInfo, Correio Braziliense, Jano.es and several other news outlets.

National Food Strategy launch – July 2021

The National Food Strategy, an independent review carried out for the Government by a team led by businessman and author Henry Dimbleby, was launched on 15 July 2021 to widespread coverage, with discussion in the BBC, Guardian, Sky News, Times and many other news outlets.

The report, which has been praised for its breadth, depth and ambition, cited at least 10 research papers by Unit authors as well as referencing the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) – led by the Unite in collaboration with NatCen – on several occasions. Professor Martin White of our Population Health Interventions programme was among the experts thanks by report author Henry Dimbleby for their contributions.

Professor White was interview by Eddie Mair on LBC about the report on 15 July, and you can listen to a clip from that interview here. Dr Jean Adams, also from our Population Health Interventions programme, was interviewed about the report on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on 15 July (interview starts 3.13.20).

Lifting COVID restrictions on 19 July in UK may affect communities unequally – July 2021

Unit Global Diet and Activity Research Group leader Dr Tolullah Oni was quoted in an article in the Guardian, following the publication of interim findings by the People’s Covid Inquiry, where she warned that lifting almost all Covid-19 restrictions in England on 19 July 2021 would affect communities unequally, saying “We’re further widening the health inequalities we’ve seen play out in the last year”

This accompanied a letter in the Lancet warning of the “dangerous and premature” decision to lift Covid prevention measures in England that she and more than 100 other leading health scientists signed.

Unit researchers contribute to latest Food Foundation Broken Plate report – July 2021

Researchers from CEDAR at the MRC Epidemiology Unit have contributed to the Food Foundation’s third annual Broken Plate report.

Each year the report tracks progress against 10 metrics that illustrate the health of our food system.

This year’s report demonstrates that the food environment is skewed towards less healthy options, and that healthier foods are much less accessible and affordable for those on lower incomes. It powerfully shows why we must change the food environment so that it delivers healthy and sustainable diets for everyone.

Rare genetic variants confer largest increase in type 2 diabetes risk seen to date – July 2021

Unit scientists led by PhD student Yajie Zhao and Dr John Perry have identified rare genetic variants – carried by one in 3,000 people – that have a larger impact on the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than any previously identified variants.

The researchers read the complete DNA sequences of over 20,000 genes that code for proteins in humans in 200,000 adults in UK Biobank, in a comprehensive approach to identify genetic variants associated with the loss of the Y chromosome (LOY). LOY is a biomarker that has been previously linked to age-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cancer.

The team identified rare variants in the gene GIGYF1 that substantially increase susceptibility to loss of the Y chromosome, and also increase an individual’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes six-fold.

Their future research by will examine how loss of function variants in GIGYF1 lead to large increases in type 2 diabetes risk, as well as other links between biomarkers of biological ageing in adults and metabolic disorders.

New research finds that genetics plays an important role in age at first sex and parenthood – July 2021

An analysis of data from more than half a million UK Biobank participants has discovered hundreds of genetic markers driving two of life’s most momentous milestones – the age at when people first have sex and become parents, has identified hundreds of genetic markers driving two of life’s milestones – the ages at when people first have sex and become parents.

The researchers, led by Professor Melinda Mills at the University of Oxford and MRC Epidemiology Unit scientist Dr Felix Day, found that several of the genetic variants were associated with genes that are involved in aspects of reproductive biology, but that these genetic traits are strongly moderated by social factors and the environment.

Study finds almost 1 million extra deaths in 29 high income countries in 2020 during Covid-19 pandemic – May 2021

An international collaboration, led by researchers at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, including Unit scientist Professor Martin White and former Unit member Dr Nazrul Islam, has calculated that approximately one million excess deaths occurred in 2020 across 29 high income countries.

The researchers found that in most countries, the estimated number of excess deaths exceeded the number of reported deaths from COVID-19. It was 33% higher for the United Kingdom (UK), but over 50% higher for some countries, which suggests that many countries underestimated COVID-19 deaths and/or experienced a significant increase in non-COVID-19 deaths..

Evaluation of no-car zones near two Cambridge Schools – May 2021

Dr Jenna Panter was interviewed by the Cambridge News about the launch of a new survey to evaluate the impact of two no-car zones around St Matthews & St Bedes schools in Cambridge, and discussed the survey with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on 21 May as part of a longer item about the plans to introduce the no-car zones.

BBC Look East reports on completion of Fenland Covid-19 study data collection – May 2021

Unit researcher Dr Kirsten Rennie spoke with BBC Look East reporter Richard Westcott about the completion of data collection for the Fenland Covid-19 study. They discussed the amount and types of information they collected, and how they will now analyse that data to learn about both the levels of Covid-19 infection and the wider impact of the pandemic on health and wellbeing.

New study finds shared origins for individual chronic diseases in multimorbidity – March 2021

A new analysis of blood plasma metabolites in 11,000 EPIC-Norfolk study participants has found that individual chronic diseases in multimorbidity share common origins.

This work provides an unprecedented reference map of human metabolism, which the team led by Dr Claudia Langenberg have made publicly available to the scientific community on the Omicscience.org webserver.

First Author Dr Maik Pietzner commented “People do not usually develop just one long-term disease, so by taking a broader approach rather than just focusing on one disease at a time we can gain a more useful understanding of the underlying biological processes. Treatments that target pathways that are shared by two or more of a patient’s conditions may be better able to provide benefit in a more consistent way that avoids increasing the risk of other conditions.”

Sugar purchased in soft drinks fell 10% following introduction of industry levy – March 2021

A new analysis of all food and drink purchases and brought into the home by UK households between  March 2014 and March 2019 has found that the amount of sugar purchased by households through soft drinks fell by 10% in the year following the introduction of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy.

The report, published in the BMJ, found no change in the volume of all soft drinks purchased in March 2019. However, there was a reduction in sugar purchased in all soft drinks (including exempt drinks) combined of 29.5g per household per week, equivalent to a 10% decrease.

Professor Martin White, project lead for the Soft Drinks Industry Levy Evaluation commented “This represents a valuable win-win for public health and the food industry – potentially improving people’s health with no detrimental effect on the volume of soft drinks that companies are selling.”

Quarterly report on progress to address COVID-19 health inequalities – Race Disparities Unit – February 2021

Dr Raghib Ali was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (segment starts at 1:17:30) on Friday 26 February about the findings of the second UK Government report on COVID-19 ethnic disparities, and was also quoted in an article in the print edition of the Telegraph.

Professor Nita Forouhi was quoted in the Government announcement of the report’s findings.

Screen time and children’s health – Mail Plus – February 2021

Dr Esther van Sluijs spoke with Mail plus for an item on the potential impacts on children’s health of increased screen time during the Covid pandemic, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between mentally-active and mentally passive screen time. Watch the discussion on Mail plus.

Covid death rate in Fenland area – BBC Radio Cambridgeshire – February 2021

Professor Nita Forouhi and Dr Kirsten Rennie discussed the Covid death rate in the Fenland region and the role of underlying health factors in it, as well as the Fenland Covid-19 study,with David Webster on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (item starts 03.13)

Vaccine hesitancy in ethnic minority groups – BBC Radio Four – Inside Science -January 2021

Dr Tolullah Oni, a member of the SAGE ethnicity subgroup,  discusses a SAGE report looking at vaccine hesitancy in ethnic minority groups on BBC Radio Four – Inside Science (item starts 1m 12s)

Successive governments’ approach to obesity policies has destined them to fail – January 2021

A new analysis of government obesity policies in England over the past three decades found that they have largely failed because of problems with implementation, lack of learning from past successes or failures, and a reliance on trying to persuade individuals to change their behaviour rather than tackling unhealthy environments.

In their report published in The Milbank Quarterly by PhD Student Dolly Theis and Professor Martin White identified 14 government-led obesity strategies in England from 1992-2020. They analysed these strategies to determine whether they have been fit for purpose and identified seven criteria necessary for effective implementation, but found that only 8% of policies fulfilled all seven criteria, while the largest proportion of policies (29%) did not fulfil a single one of the criteria.

Theis and White recommend that governments need to accompany policy proposals with information that ensures they can be successfully implemented, and with built-in evaluation plans and time frames, noting that there has already been some progress on evaluation in the UK. They also urge policy makers to continue to move away from interventions that rely on individual’s changing their diet and activity, and towards policies that change the environments that encourage people to overeat and to be sedentary in the first place.

Discovery of genetic regulators of human metabolism and health – January 2021

An international team of researchers led by Dr Claudia Langenberg has used a cross-platform approach across several large human studies to identify hundreds of novel genetic variants that regulate metabolite levels in the blood.

In the paper in Nature Genetics, the researchers integrated genetic association data for metabolites from over 85,000 individuals and demonstrating that results can successfully be combined across studies  which use different metabolite measurement technologies.

The identification of variations in the genes that regulate essential metabolic processes helps to better understand what causes common and rare diseases and can lead to new strategies for their prevention and management. For example, the authors found strong link between high levels of the amino acid serine and protection from a rare eye disease called macular telangiectasia type 2, highlighting new therapeutic opportunities and showing that the common genetic variants they identified for differences in plasma serine could distinguish between controls and patients with this severe and difficult to diagnose eye disease.

Consortium led by Unit researchers develops open platform to help discover COVID-19 drugs – December 2020

An international consortium led by MRC researchers has developed an open access platform to help prioritise drug discovery and repurposing efforts for the current COVID-19 pandemic. The platform provides information on the genetic variation of host proteins involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection, based on analysis of genetic and proteomic data from 10,708 Fenland Study participants.

Using the SomaScan assay, the team led by Dr Claudia Langenberg and Dr Maik Pietzner assessed COVID-19 relevant candidate proteins in the Fenland Study participants to identify genetic variants that regulate the way that they interact with SARS-CoV-2, or which may contribute to the adverse host responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The team identified 220 genetic variants that corresponded with 97 of the 179 investigated host proteins and which explain up to 70% of the variance in SARS-CoV-2 response for these proteins, including 45 proteins for which such variants had not previously been identified, and 38 corresponding to proteins that are current drug targets.

To enable rapid sharing of results with the scientific community the investigators created a publicly available web resource, which has since been used by investigators around the world to prioritize drug targets and gain deeper insights into the pathophysiology of COVID-19.

Nearly 4,000 Fenland Study volunteers use OneDraw blood collection device – December 2020

Drawbridge Health and the MRC Epidemiology Unit announced the use of the OneDraw™ Blood Collection Device for remote blood sample collection in a large-scale surveillance study currently being conducted to assess the prevalence of previous infection with COVID-19. The OneDraw Blood Collection Device from Drawbridge Health is being used by nearly 4,000 Fenland Study volunteers as part of the Fenland COVID-19 study.

Because of the restrictions the pandemic has created for normal contact between researchers and research volunteers, remote, non-contact blood collection is critical for delivering fit-for-purpose samples to the clinical testing laboratory in a safe and efficient way.

This large-scale surveillance study was following the positive results obtained from an earlier feasibility study for COVID-19 serological testing, in which 44 Unit members participated as volunteers, that demonstrated the suitability of using the OneDraw device for clinical studies and clinical trials in a real world setting.

Drawbridge Health and the MRC Epidemiology Unit are developing a collaboration in metabolic health, including the evaluation of nutritional biomarkers, which will be enabled by remote blood sample collection using the OneDraw device.

Select Committee – Sport in our communities – December 2020

On 1 December 2020 Dr Esther van Sluijs gave oral evidence to the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee on sport in our communities. Her evidence was quoted in articles in the Daily Mail and Telegraph on the impact of the Covid pandemic on sport and physical activity.

Quarterly report on progress to address COVID-19 health inequalities – Race Disparities Unit – October 2020

Dr Raghib Ali was announced as a one of the Government’s new expert advisers on COVID and ethnicity on 22 October, and with Professor Keith Neal of the University of Nottingham briefed science journalists at a Science Media Centre on the Government’s Race Disparities Unit’s first quarterly report on progress to address COVID health inequalities, with particular reference to ethnicity. Dr Ali explained how understanding of risk factors has improved since the Public Health England report in June, and described the action government has taken to date and outline future steps to address disparities.

The report was presented to the Prime Minister by the Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch, who also update the House of Commons on progress described in the report on Thursday 22 October.

Restricting unhealthy food advertising on TV could reduce number of overweight and obese children by 120,000 – October 2020

An analysis published in PLOS Medicine by researchers led by Dr Oliver Mytton from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) found that unhealthy food advertising on television before the 9pm watershed is responsible for 1 in 22 cases of childhood obesity. Removing these adverts before 9pm, the intention of new government regulation announced in July this year, has the potential to reduce the number of children with obesity by 40,000 and those with overweight by a further 80,000.

Using UK data from 2015 the researchers estimated that if all advertising of foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) between 5.30am and 9pm was banned, children in the UK would see, on average, 1.5 fewer HFSS advertisements per day. They calculated that this would reduce the number of children (aged 5-17 years) with obesity by 4.6% and with overweight (including obesity) by 3.6%.

However, the researchers calculated that if all of the HFSS advertising is shifted to after 9pm, around two-thirds of the health benefits from a 9pm watershed may be lost, and argue that this underscores the need to prevent displacement of unhealthy food advertising to after the 9 PM watershed, and from television to online.

Largest ever study using wearable devices finds physical activity is beneficial for health, and more intense activity is better – August 2020

A paper published in Nature Medicine by a research team led by Unit Physical Activity Epidemiology programme members Dr Tessa Strain and Dr Søren Brage found that physical activity of any intensity is beneficial for health, but more intense activity has greater benefits.

While previous research has shown that moderate and vigorous intensity activity confers greater health benefits than light intensity activity, it has not been clear if this is because it makes a greater contribution to the total physical activity amounts, or if it has additional health benefits beyond this.

The low intensity movement that accumulates in everyday activities is hard to recall accurately, and consequently difficult to measure using the questionnaires used by most large-scale epidemiological studies. Wearable devices have enabled better detection of this type of movement, but until now have not been used on a large enough scale to determine if more intense activity makes a contribution to health, distinct from increasing total volume.

By analysing data from more than 96,000 UK Biobank participants, in the largest study to date of accelerometer-measured physical activity,  the team were able to disentangle the roles of volume and intensity of activity in influencing future health.

MRC Epidemiology Unit launches study to monitor COVID-19 in 12,000 Cambridgeshire residents – July 2020

Participants in Cambridgeshire’s Fenland Study are being invited to join an innovative study that will use a home-administered blood sampling device  – the Drawbridge Health OneDraw device – to find out how many have evidence in their blood of previous COVID-19 infection.

The primary aim of this study is to quantify the proportion of people who have had COVID-19 in the Fenland cohort, and participants will be tested several times over the duration of the study allow researchers to identify new as well as existing COVID-19 cases.  Researchers will also be able to determine if those with COVID-19 antibodies at the start of the study continue to have positive antibody status over the study period, or if antibody levels decline over time.

The study will also investigate whether it is possible to identify the COVID-19 pre-symptomatic phase using measurement of signs and symptoms collected via a smartphone App developed by Huma. Participants will use a smartphone app to record measurements such as heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, and temperature. Participants will also enter health information such as body weight and diet changes, medication and supplement use, their mental health and wellbeing, and COVID-19 symptoms and potential risk factors.

Earlier lockdown restrictions linked to greater reduction in new COVID-19 cases – July 2020

A BMJ paper by Dr Nazrul Islam and colleagues – including senior author Professor Martin White at the MRC Epidemiology Unit – examines the association between implementation of physical distancing interventions and new cases of COVID-19 in 149 countries and regions.

Their findings show that physical distancing measures, such as closing schools, workplaces, and public transport, restricting mass gatherings, and restrictions on people’s movement within countries or regions (‘lockdown’), were associated with an overall reduction of 13% in new COVID-19 cases in a study period of up to 30 days after implementation of the measures .

The data also shows that implementing physical distancing measures earlier was associated with a greater reduction in new cases, and that in combination with school and workplace closure, restriction on mass gatherings seemed to be a key component associated with a decrease in COVID-19 incidence.

Type 2 diabetes: eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables daily lowers risk, study shows – July 2020

In a BMJ paper an international research team led by Dr Ju-Sheng Zheng of Westlake University, and including senior authors Professor Nita Forouhi and Professor Nick Wareham from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, reported their new research showing how objective nutritional biomarkers – indicators of dietary intake, metabolism or nutritional status that are present in our blood – can help inform advice on healthy eating.

Their research also found that eating around 66 grams more of fruit and vegetables daily could potentially cut risk of type 2 diabetes by a quarter.

They studied participants in the EPIC-InterAct study, specifically examining biomarkers in 10,000 people in eight European countries who developed type 2 diabetes during follow-up and compared them with 13,500 people who didn’t.

The biomarkers measured were levels of vitamin C and six different plant pigments in the blood, which can be used to estimate the fruit and vegetables a person gets in their diet. The researchers calculated the total sum of these seven nutrient biomarkers as a composite score, then split the scores into five categories ranging from lowest consumption to highest.

They found that the higher the biomarker score level, the lower the risk of future type 2 diabetes. People whose biomarker score was in the top 20% of the population had a 50% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with lower scores.

COVID-19 and ethnicity: who will research results apply to? – June 2020

In June Professor Nita Forouhi was an author on the Lancet Comment article “COVID-19 and ethnicity: who will research results apply to?”, which was reported by several news outlets including the Aberdeen Evening Express, Foreign Affairs and Infosurhoy.

Physical activity prevents almost four million early deaths worldwide each year – June 2020

A paper published in Lancet Global Health by Dr Tessa Strain of our Physical Activity Epidemiology programme and Professor Paul Kelly from the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh, reported that at least 3.9 million early deaths are being averted worldwide every year by people being physically active.

Health experts often focus on the number of early deaths due to lack of physical activity, estimated to be 3.2 million each year. By showing how many deaths are averted, in a study examining data from 168 countries, Dr Strain and colleagues hope to frame the debate in a positive way and this could have benefits to advocacy, policy and population messaging.

Walking or cycling to work associated with reduced risk of early death and illness – May 2020

A study led by Dr Richard Patterson of our Public Health Interventions programme, and published in Lancet Planetary Health, has found that commuters who walk, cycle and travel by train to work are at reduced risk of early death or illness compared with those who travel by car.

The study used data from the UK Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales – a dataset that links data from several sources including the Census of England and Wales, and registrations of death and cancer diagnoses – to track the same people for up to 25 years, between 1991-2016.

They found that those who cycled had reductions of 20 per cent in the rate of early death, 24 per cent in death from cardiovascular disease, 16 per cent in death from cancer, and 11 per cent in cancer diagnosis during the study period.

The researchers commented that findings suggest increased walking and cycling post-lockdown may reduce deaths from heart disease and cancer.

NIHR video appeal for people from BAME backgrounds to take part in COVID-19 Research – May 2020

Professor Nita Forouhi of our Nutritional Epidemiology programme helped to organise, and featured in, a video appeal by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for more people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds to take part in COVID-19 research studies.

Alongside Professor Forouhi the video featured British actors, comedians and broadcasters Omid Djalili and Sanjeev Bhasker, and American Oscar winning actor Whoopi Goldberg, as well as Professors Kamlesh Khunti and Azhar Farooqi from the University of Leicester. The appeal was shared widely on social media, with the Omid Djalili’s twitter video viewed more than 125,000 times, and was reported in more than two hundred local and regional UK print and online news outlets.

Moderate exercise in middle and older age cuts time spent in hospital – May 2020

A paper from the EPIC-Norfolk study, published in BMC Geriatrics, reported that men and women aged 40-79 are at significantly lower (25-27%) risk of long or frequent hospital admissions if they do some form of physical activity.

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Public Health and Primary Care and MRC Epidemiology Unit, found that inactive participants in the study spent just over 4 days more in hospital over the next ten years than those who did at least some physical activity, whether for work or leisure. And similar results were observed 10 years later when the same participants were 50-90 years old.

The authors calculated that for every inactive person who started to take at least some exercise, the NHS could save around £247 per year. This would equate to around 7% of the UK’s per capita health expenditure.

Analysis of NHS health records of 3.8 million adults yields estimate of COVID-19 mortality according to underlying conditions and age – May 2020

An analysis published by a team of scientists that includes Unit researcher Dr Claudia Langenberg and colleagues at UCL, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Health Data Research UK, indicates that at least 20% of the UK population has a high-risk underlying condition for COVID-19 infection listed by Public Health England.

The authors have created a publicly accessible COVID -19 risk calculator showing how age, sex and underlying health conditions can affect mortality rates in different scenarios. They write that the analysis, which used NHS health records from 3.8 million adults in England, shows that the UK government must ensure that measures to ease the lockdown take into account this clinical vulnerability. 

Men pose more risk to other road users than women – April 2020

Men pose more risk to other road users than women do and they are more likely to drive more dangerous vehicles, reveals the first study of its kind, published online in the journal Injury Prevention by scientists at the University of Westminster and University of Cambridge.

Rather than focus on an individual’s injury risk from their own use of a particular type of transport, the researchers examined the risk posed to other road users, using four sets of official data for England for the period 2005-15: police injury statistics (Stats19); Road Traffic Statistics; National Travel Survey data; and Office for National Statistics population/gender figures.

The researchers analysed the risks posed to other road users from bicycles, cars and taxis, vans, buses, lorries and motorbikes per billion vehicle kilometres travelled, and categorised by road type and gender.

Cars and taxis were associated with two-thirds of fatalities to other road users, but lorries were associated with more than five times as many deaths for each km driven. There was a similarly high death toll for buses per km driven.

At the other end of the scale, cycling is relatively safe for others: it was associated with fewer deaths to other parties per km ridden than all the other types of transport, with just one other party death per billion km cycled.

Analysis of the data by gender showed that men posed a significantly higher risk to other road users for five of the six vehicle types studied. For cars and vans, the risk posed by male drivers was double that posed by women per km driven, rising to four times higher for lorry drivers, and more than 10 times higher for motorbike riders.

Sugar levels in UK soft drinks lowered following government levy – February 2020

Researchers have found that the UK government’s Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), introduced in April 2018 to help combat childhood obesity and related conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, has resulted in soft drinks manufacturers in the UK lowering the sugar levels in their drinks.

The SDIL applies to drinks containing more than 5g of sugar per 100ml, but not to fruit juice, milk-based drinks, alcoholic drinks, or drinks from companies with sales of less than 1m litres per year. The research, which is published in PLOS Medicine and was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), found that by February 2019 very few eligible drinks, just 15%, were still liable for the levy. Prior to the announcement of the levy, 52% of eligible drinks were liable for the tax.

Professor Martin White of the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Chief Investigator for the SDIL evaluation, commented:

These are the first results from our independent evaluation of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy and focus on the reformulation efforts of soft drinks companies. The findings suggest that the levy has been effective in prompting industry reformulation to reduce sugar content of many soft drinks.

However, the marketing strategies of soft drinks manufacturers compared to supermarkets vary considerably, with differences in sugar content, sizes and prices of drinks as a result of the levy. Further research is looking at how these changes affect purchases and consumption of soft drinks and potential health impacts among the public, as well as impacts on businesses and the economy. These will be reported over the next year as they become available.’

Genetic testosterone levels affect risk of metabolic disease and cancers – February 2020

In a Nature Medicine paper, researchers led by Dr John Perry reported that having genetically higher testosterone levels increases the risk of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes in women, while reducing the risk in men. Despite finding a strong genetic component to circulating testosterone levels in men and women, the authors found that the genetic factors involved were very different between the sexes.

Working with collaborators including the University of Exeter, the authors used genome wide association studies (GWAS) in 425,097 UK Biobank participants to identify 2,571 genetic variations associated with differences in the levels of the sex hormone testosterone and its binding protein sex-hormone binding globulin (SHGB). They next used Mendelian randomisation to understand whether known associations between testosterone levels and disease are causal rather than correlative

In women, genetically higher testosterone increased the risks of type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) , rather than being a consequence of this condition. However, having higher genetically higher testosterone levels reduces T2D risk in men, and genetically higher testosterone levels increased the risks of breast and endometrial cancers in women, and prostate cancer in men.

Their findings indicate that genetic techniques such as Mendelian randomisation are useful in understanding of the risks and benefits of hormone therapies.

Becoming less active and gaining weight: downsides of becoming an adult revealed in scientific reviews – January 2020

Two new papers published in Obesity Reviews by Dr Eleanor Winpenny and Dr Kirsten Corder at the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) at Cambridge and colleagues examined changes in physical activity, diet and body weight as young adults move from education into employment and to becoming a parent. To do this, they carried out systematic reviews and meta-analyses of existing scientific literature – these approaches allow them to compare and consolidate results from a number of often-contradictory studies to reach more robust conclusions.

In the first paper the team found that leaving high school was associated with a decrease of seven minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The decrease was larger for males than it was for females, and was largest when people go to university.

In the second paper they found that the difference in change in body mass index (BMI) between remaining without children and becoming a parent was 17%. This means that a woman of average height (164cm) who had no children gained around 7.5kg over five to six years, while a mother of the same height would gain an additional 1.3kg.

Dr Winpenny, commented:

Children have a relatively protected environment, with healthy food and exercise encouraged within schools, but this evidence suggests that the pressures of university, employment and childcare drive changes in behaviour which are likely to be bad for long-term health.

This is a really important time when people are forming healthy or unhealthy habits that will continue through adult life. If we can pinpoint the factors in our adult lives which are driving unhealthy behaviours, we can then work to change them.”

Study highlights potential for ‘liquid health check’ to predict disease risk – December 2019

A new paper published in Nature Medicine by Dr Claudia Langenberg and Professor Nick Wareham of the Unit’s Aetiology and Mechanisms of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders of Later Life programme reports that proteins in our blood could in future help provide a comprehensive ‘liquid health check’, assessing our health and predicting the likelihood that we will we will develop a range of diseases.

The team of researchers from the UK and USA, working with biotech company SomaLogic, scanned 5,000 proteins in plasma samples taken from 17,000 participants in the proof-of-concept study, using fragments of DNA known as aptamers that bind to the target protein. The researchers then used existing genetic sequencing technology to search for the aptamers and determine which proteins are present.

The researchers analysed the results using statistical methods and machine learning techniques to develop predictive models – for example, that an individual whose plasma contains a certain pattern of proteins is at increased risk of developing diabetes. The accuracy of the models varied,  though the researchers report that their protein-based models were all either better predictors than models based on traditional risk factors or would constitute more convenient and less expensive alternatives to traditional testing.

Dr Langenberg commented:

Proteins circulating in our blood are a manifestation of our genetic make-up as well as many other factors, such as behaviours or the presence of disease, even if not yet diagnosed, this is one of the reasons why proteins are such good indicators of our current and future health state and have the potential to improve clinical prediction across different and diverse diseases.”

Understanding the causes and consequences of mosaic Y chromosome loss – November 2019

Research led by Dr John Perry and Dr Deborah Thompson (a former member of the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology) has found that loss of the Y chromosome from circulating white blood cells is a biomarker of biological ageing that reflects broader genome instability across other tissues.

Published in Nature, the study builds on observations made over 50 years ago that the Y chromosome is frequently lost in a fraction of the white blood cells of up to 40% of men aged over 70. By measuring this form of clonal mosaicism in almost 1 million men across several studies including UK Biobank and 23andMe, the researchers were able to better understand the causes and consequences of this biological phenomenon.

Their analyses identified 156 autosomal genetic determinants of mosaic Y chromosome loss, which were preferentially found near genes involved in cell-cycle regulation, cancer susceptibility, somatic drivers of tumour growth and cancer therapy targets. These genomic analyses were complemented by single cell RNA sequencing of cells lacking the Y chromosome. Together they demonstrate that Y loss is likely to occur through predisposition to processes that either promote errors in cells division, or help create an environment where it is more likely that aneuploid cells – cells with an abnormal number of chromosomes – can proliferate.

Further analyses highlighted that individuals with high genetic predisposition to mosaic Y chromosome loss were at an increased risk for several cancer types. These same genetic variants also impacted other aspects of health and disease, notably reproductive ageing and type 2 diabetes.

Dr Perry said:

These findings help advance a body of work that highlights the DNA damage response as a biological mechanism underpinning patterns of growth, reproductive ageing, diabetes, and cancer, and acting across the life course. We propose that loss of the Y chromosome is determined by a “common soil” of shared mechanisms that predispose to genome instability and cancer across many cell types”

Menu labelling linked to less fat and salt in food at major UK restaurant chains – October 2019

A new paper published in PLOS ONE by PhD student Dolly Theis and Dr Jean Adams of the Unit’s Population Health Interventions programme reports that food sold at restaurants whose menus display energy information are lower in fat and salt than that of their competitors. It’s possible that menu labelling encourages restaurants to change the content of their food, and also that those chains with ‘healthier’ offerings are more likely to label their menus.

he researchers looked at energy and nutritional information on the websites and on menus in restaurants of the most popular 100 UK restaurant chains during March and April 2018, finding that while 42 provided energy and nutritional information online only 13 provided menu labelling in stores. Items from restaurants with in-store menu labelling had on average 45% less fat and 60% less salt than items from other restaurants.

Dolly Theis commented:

The study suggests that on the whole, restaurants that provide information on calories on menus also serve healthier food, in terms of fat and salt levels. As well as providing useful information for customers, mandatory menu labelling could also encourage restaurants to improve the nutritional quality of their menus.”

Type 2 diabetes remission possible with ‘achievable’ weight loss – September 2019

A new paper from the Unit’s ADDITION-Cambridge trial found that people who achieve weight loss of 10% or more in the first five years following diagnosis with type 2 diabetes have the greatest chance of seeing their disease go into remission.

The paper was published in Diabetic Medicine by Dr Hajira Dambha-Miller, an honorary fellow with the Unit’s Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders in High Risk Groups programme, and colleagues, and suggests that it is possible to recover from the disease without intensive lifestyle interventions or extreme calorie restrictions.

The researchers followed up 867 individuals with newly diagnosed diabetes across 49 general practices in the UK as part of the ADDITION-Cambridge study, and found that 257 participants (30%) participants were in remission at five-year follow-up. People who achieved weight loss of 10% or more within the first five years after diagnosis were more than twice as likely to go into remission compared to people who maintained the same weight.

Dr Dambha-Miller said:

We’ve known or some time now that it’s possible to send diabetes into remission using fairly drastic measures such as intensive weight loss programmes and extreme calorie restriction.

“These interventions can be very challenging to individuals and difficult to achieve. But, our results suggest that it may be possible to get rid of diabetes, for at least five years, with a more modest weight loss of 10%. This will be more motivating and hence more achievable for many people”

Growing a healthy society – The role of food – September 2019

Professor Nita Forouhi gave a talk  “Growing a healthy society- The role of food” at Queens University Belfast , organised by the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) at Queen’s, in partnership with the Oxford Farming Conference.

Responding to Professor Forouhi’s points were panel of leading experts including Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer Northern Ireland; Professor Ian Young, Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Health, Northern Ireland; Professor Alice Stanton of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin; and Ursula Lavery, R&D Director for Europe at NI-based agri-food multinational, Moy Park. BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme presenter Anna Hill chaired the discussion.

Patients with an ‘empathic’ GP at reduced risk of early death – July 2019

A new paper published in Annals of Family Medicine by Dr Hajira Dambha-Miller, an honorary fellow with the Unit’s Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders in High Risk Groups programme, and colleagues, has found that patients who have been diagnosed with diabetes are at a lower risk of early death if they have a doctor who they describe as showing empathy towards them.

Researchers at Cambridge followed up 867 individuals across 49 general practices in the UK as part of the ADDITION-Cambridge study to examine the association between primary care practitioner empathy and incidence of cardiovascular disease events or death. Those patients reporting better experiences of empathy in the first 12 months after diagnosis had a significantly lower risk (40-50%) of death over the subsequent 10 years compared to those who experienced low practitioner empathy.

Dr Dambha-Miller said:

Our findings suggest that these more human elements of healthcare early in the course of diabetes, may be important in their long-term health outcomes. The potential impact is considerable and is comparable to prescribing medicines but without the associated problems of side effects or non-adherence”

Keeping active or becoming more active in middle and older age linked to longer life – June 2019

A new paper published in the BMJ suggests that keeping physically active or becoming more active during middle and older age is associated with a lower risk of death, regardless of past activity levels or existing health conditions.

Previous studies have linked physical activity to lower risk of death, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers, but few studies have examined if within-person changes in physical activity over time are associated with subsequent risk of death. The new analysis of data from 14,599 men and women aged 40-79 from the EPIC Norfolk study indicates that at the population level, meeting and maintaining at least the minimum public health recommendations (equivalent to 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity) would potentially prevent 46% of deaths associated with physical inactivity.

Senior author Dr Soren Brage, programme leader for Physical Activity Epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said:

Public health efforts should seek to maintain physical activity levels in people as they age, and specifically to prevent declines in middle age and beyond, in addition to efforts to shift the whole population towards meeting the minimum physical activity recommendations.”

Fumiaki Imamura: The international road to scientific success – June 2019

The Japan Times – Japan’s largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper –  published a profile  “Fumiaki Imamura: The international road to scientific success”,  following an interview with Dr Fumiaki Imamura in May 2019 where he discussed the career path that took him to his current position as a Senior Investigator Scientist in the Unit’s Nutritional Epidemiology programme.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds and certain ethnic minorities do less vigorous physical activity – May 2019

A new paper published in BMJ Open by CEDAR researchers reports that children from disadvantaged backgrounds and certain ethnic minority backgrounds, including from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, have lower levels of vigorous physical activity.

The researchers studied data from almost 5,200 children aged 7 years who were part of the Millennium Cohort Study, a longitudinal study of children born in the UK between September 2000 and January 2002. The children were given accelerometers and their activity measured for a minimum of ten hours for three days.

Senior author Dr Esther van Sluijs, programme leader for Behavioural Epidemiology and Interventions in Young People at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, explains:

There are clear differences in the amount of vigorous physical activity a child does depending on their socioeconomic and ethnic background. Although individually, these differences are small, at a population level they are likely to make a difference. Changes to reduce existing gaps in vigorous intensity activity could help reduce existing inequalities in levels of obesity in children.”

Type 2 diabetes: losing even a small amount of weight may lower heart disease risk – May 2019

An analysis of date from  725 people who were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the ADDITION study, found that those who lost at least 5% of their weight in the year after they were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes had a 48% lower risk of cardiovascular disease after ten years, compared with people who kept the same weight.

How both mother and baby genes affect birth weight – May 2019

A genetic study, published in Nature Genetics, identified 190 links between our genetic code and birth weight, two-thirds of which were identified for the first time.  The large scale international collaboration, led by the universities of Exeter, Queensland, Oxford, and the MRC Epidemiology Unit, looked at genetic information from 230,069 mothers, with the birth weight of one child each, in addition to genetic information and birth weights of 321,223 people across the UK Biobank and the Early Growth Genetics consortium cohorts.

A child inherits half their genes from their mother and half from their father, and the resulting genetic make-up plays a role in birth weight. The paper reveals the complex balance of how both the mother’s genes and the baby’s genes can influence the baby’s growth, with the baby’s genes making a substantial contribution to birth weight. Around one-quarter of the genetic effects identified were from the mother’s genes that were not passed on to the child. Instead, these affected the baby’s growth by influencing factors in the baby’s environment during pregnancy, such as the amount of glucose available.

The study found that some parts of the genetic code can be linked to birth weight both directly from the child and indirectly from the mother. A number of these were seen to work together, with a particular variation in both the mother and baby effects pushing birth weight in the same direction, while other variations had opposing effects depending on whether they were in the mother or baby.

Discovery of genetic variants that protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes could lead to new weight loss medicines – April 2019

In a new genetic study published in the journal Cell, a research team led by Professor Nick Wareham and Dr Claudia Langenberg at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and Professor Sadaf Farooqi at the University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories, has shown that genetic variants in the MC4R gene that increase the activity of this brain receptor can protect people from becoming overweight.

The team looked at the MC4R gene in half a million volunteers from the UK population who have taken part in the UK Biobank, finding 61 distinct naturally-occurring genetic variants. While some of these genetic variants predisposed people to become obese, other variants provided protection against obesity and some of its major complications, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Dr Luca Lotta, Senior Clinical Investigator at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and joint lead author of the study said:

“A powerful emerging concept is that genetic variants that protect against disease can be used as models for the development of medicines that are more effective and safer. Our findings may pave the way for a new generation of weight loss therapies that activate MC4R preferentially via the beta-arrestin pathway.”

Global diet and health: Unit researchers discuss fresh evidence from huge global study – April 2019

On 4 April 2019, the Lancet published Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 . The report was accompanied by a Lancet Comment article Global diet and health: old questions, fresh evidence, and new horizons by Professor Nita Fourohi, programme leader for Nutritional Epidemiology here at the Unit, and Nigel Unwin, our Director of Research in Global Public Health. A summary of the findings of the Global Burden of Disease Study is available at www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/blog/global-diet-new-horizons/.

This report and the Comment article have received a large amount of media attention, and Dr Nita Forouhi was interviewed by several news outlet, including the BBC World Service (18.55) and BBC Radio 4 You and Yours. Dr Forouhi and Dr Unwin were also quoted in more than two dozen print and online news articles, including BBC News online, Sun, Daily Mail, Mirror, Irish Times, New York Times and CBS News.

Expert comment on ultraprocessed food consumption and risk of death – February 2019

Professor Nita Forouhi provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new paper in JAMA internal Medicine which reported the results of a new study looking at ultraprocessed food consumption and risk of death.

In her comment Professor Forouhi said:

“Is this research definitive? – no, more evidence is still needed to confirm these findings, we need greater clarity on type of food processing and extent of any misclassification of foods, and mechanisms of the link need further study, yet we would ignore these findings at public health’s peril”

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire interview about sedentary behaviour – January 2019

Dr Paddy Dempsey, a postdoctoral fellow with our Physical Activity Epidemiology programme, was interviewed by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire about the health impacts of sedentary behaviour, and what we can do to avoid being sedentary. He was subsequently interviewed on the same topic by the Naked Scientists.

Physical activity programmes in schools aren’t working – here’s why – January 2019

CEDAR Ph.D student Rebecca Love and programme leaders Dr Jean Adams and Dr Esther van Sluijs published the article “Physical activity programmes in schools aren’t working – here’s why” in The Conversation, discussing their new paper published in Obesity Reviews which found that current school‐based efforts to promote physical activity do not increase children’s physical activity across the full day.

Expert comment on dietary fibre and the risk of non-communicable disease – January 2019

Professor Nita Forouhi provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new paper in The Lancet which reported the results of a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that investigated the relationship between carbohydrate quality and health .

In her comment Professor Forouhi said:

“We need to take serious note of this study, based on a robust analysis and complementary findings from both observational and randomised trial evidence. This study effectively re-endorses that the UK Government advice to consume 30g fibre per day is pretty spot on. The onus is on individuals themselves, as well as public agencies, to make it happen, as average fibre intakes remain woefully low at a population level in the UK.”

Gene variations that reduce ability to store fat around the hips linked to higher risk of diabetes and heart attacks – December 2018

A new genetic study of over 600,000 people published in JAMA, led by Unit researchers Dr Claudia Langenberg and Dr Luca Lotta, indicates that people who are less likely to put on excess fat around their hips are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart attacks.

Using data from several large UK and international studies the researchers identified over 200 genetic variants that predispose people to a higher waist-to-hip ratio. Among these they identified two specific groups of genetic variants that increased waist-to-hip ratio – one exclusively via lower hip fat and the other exclusively via higher abdominal fat, and they found that both were associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart attacks.

The researchers suggest that this higher risk is due to a genetically-determined inability to store excess calories safely in the hip region. This means that individuals with this genetic make-up preferentially store their excess fat in the liver, muscles or pancreas, or in their blood in the form of circulating fats and sugar, any of which can lead to a higher disease risk.

Researchers Identify Genes Associated with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome – December 2018

An international research team that includes members of the Unit’s Growth and Development programme has identified new genes associated with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, highlighting the common genetic architecture that underpins this condition that affects one in ten women during their lifetime.

The study also highlighted the genetic links between PCOS and other conditions including metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, menopause, obesity and depression

Dr Felix Day, senior research associate in Growth and Development at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and a contributing author on the study, said:

“The links between PCOS and mental health suggest the importance of a holistic approach where the social and psychosocial dimensions of the disease are considered. The next steps are to further characterize the causes of this understudied disease that affects many women worldwide”.

Removing sweets and crisps from supermarket checkouts linked to dramatic fall in unhealthy snack purchases  – December 2018

On Tuesday 18 December 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr Katrine Ejlerskov and Dr Jean Adams of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit published a paper in PLOS Medicine which suggests that policies aimed at removing sweets and crisps from checkouts could lead to a dramatic reduction in the amount of unhealthy food purchased to eat ‘on the go’ and a significant reduction in that purchased to take home.

The research team used data from more than 30,000 UK households who recorded all the food they bought and brought home during 2013–2017 to assess the impact that the introduction of policies by major supermarket chains to remove or limit unhealthy foods checkout food has had on shoppers’ purchasing habits.

They found that 76% fewer purchases of sugary confectionary, chocolate and potato crisps were bought and eaten ‘on-the-go’ from supermarkets with checkout food policies compared to those without. In addition, 17% fewer small packages of these items were bought and taken home from supermarkets immediately after introducing a checkout food policy.

Expert comment to BBC on continuing rise in fast food outlets in UK High Streets  – October 2018

On Tuesday 23 October 2018, Dr Tom Burgoine of the CEDAR Social, Economic and Neighbourhood Determinants of Diet programme was interviewed by BBC Look East on the rise in fast food outlets in UK High Streets.

Dr Burgoine also provided comment for a BBC News Online item, and was subsequently quoted in articles in the Daily Mail, Grimsby Live, Lynn News and several other local news outlets.

Markers of dairy fat consumption linked to lower risk of type 2 diabetes – October 2018

On  Wednesday 10 October 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr Fumiaki Imamura of the Unit’s Nutritional Epidemiology programme and  Professor Dariush Mozaffarian, Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, published a paper in PLOS Medicine reporting that higher levels of biomarkers of dairy fat consumption are associated with lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The study in more than 60,000 adults was undertaken by the FORCE Consortium, which was established by researchers from Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia to examine the relationships of fatty acid biomarkers with diseases. Biomarkers are tell-tale molecules in the body that can be measured accurately and consistently, and act as indictors of dietary consumption.

In a comment Dr Imamura said:

“Our results provide the most comprehensive global evidence to date about dairy fat biomarkers and their relationship with lower risk of type 2 diabetes. We’re aware that our biomarker work has limitations and requires further research on underlying mechanisms, but at the very least, the available evidence about dairy fat does not indicate any increased risk for the development of type 2 diabetes.

We hope that our findings and existing evidence about dairy fat will help inform future dietary recommendations for the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases.”

Expert reaction to new study on sleep, exercise, recreational screen time use and cognition in children – September 2018

On Wednesday 26 September 2018, Dr Kirsten Corder of the CEDAR Behavioural Epidemiology Programme provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health on the associations between  sleep, exercise, recreational screen time use and cognition in children.

In her comment Dr Corder  said:

“Importantly, this study confirms that physical activity is not harmful to cognition and emphasises its importance for physical health. The guidelines used here broadly align with British recommendations, where an average of an hour a day of activity is suggested for children.”

New drugs could reduce risk of heart disease and diabetes when added to statins – September 2018

On Wednesday 19 September 2018, a team of researchers led by Dr Luca Lotta of the Unit’s Aetiology of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders programme published a paper in JAMA Cardiology New reporting that new drugs called LPL-enhancers, which are in various stages of development and which lower levels of triglycerides (a type of fat) in blood, could further reduce the risk of heart attack when added to statins.

They used a genetic approach called Mendelian randomisation, which uses naturally occurring genetic differences to simulate the effects of a clinical trial, to study the likely effects of statins and these novel LPL-enhancing drugs.

In a comment Dr Lotta said:

“We’re using genetics to gain insight and help to predict the likely result of future trials. Studies that simulate clinical trials are invaluable because large-scale trials are expensive, take years to conduct and considerable resources – scientists need strong evidence of a drug’s likelihood of success before it gets to the trial stage.”

Expert reaction to study in The Lancet examining links between dairy consumption, cardiovascular disease and death – September 2018

Professor Nita Forouhi provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new paper in The Lancet which investigated the association of dairy intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 21 countries from five continents.

In her comment Professor Forouhi said:

“The key question of whether we should consume low-fat or full-fat dairy is not really fully answered by this research due to low intakes of low-fat dairy in much of the world except Europe and North America. For now, current guidelines should be followed. But this study certainly opens up debate and should serve as a stimulus for more research to tease out this issue on relative benefits of whole-fat versus low-fat dairy.”

Expert reaction to study in Lancet Public Health examining link between carbohydrate intake and health – August 2018

Professor Nita Forouhi provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new paper in the journal Lancet Public Health which investigated the association between carbohydrate intake and mortality.

In her comment Professor Forouhi said:

“A really important message from this study is that it is not enough to focus on the nutrients, but whether they are derived from animal or plant sources.  When carbohydrate intake is reduced in the diet, there are benefits when this is replaced with plant-origin fat and protein food sources but not when replaced with animal-origin sources such as meats. Many low-carb diet regimes do not make this distinction, but it is important.”

Feeding in the first year of life: SACN report – July 2018

A new report from Public Health England’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition: Subgroup on Maternal and Child Nutrition, which is chaired by Professor Ken Ong of the Unit’s Growth and Development programme, has found that many – up to 75% – of infants in the UK are overfed.

The report makes several recommendations to improve infant nutrition, including on support for breastfeeding and the introduction of complementary feeding.

Elucidating the genetic basis of social interaction and isolation – July 2018

On Tuesday 03 July 2018, Felix Day, Ken Ong and John Perry from the Unit’s Growth and Development Programme  published a paper in Nature Communications identifying  15 genomic loci for loneliness, and demonstrating a likely causal association between adiposity and increased susceptibility to loneliness and depressive symptoms.

FRESH study volunteers and team interviewed on BBC Look East – June 2018

BBC Look East reporter Richard Westcott met a family who are taking part in the FRESH study. He also interviewed Principal Investigator Dr Esther van Sluijs, and  research team members Corinna Colella and Bethan Everson.

FRESH is an innovative programme designed to help families in Norfolk and Suffolk become more active by doing fun stuff together.

Launch of new SAFER study of screening for atrial fibrillation – June 2018

Professor Simon Griffin discussed the launch of the SAFER study with BBC Look East. The SATER study, on which Professor Griffin is a co-investigator,  is a new programme of research investigating screening to detect undiagnosed atrial fibrillation, a heart condition responsible for one in ten strokes.

Expert reaction on eggs and cardiovascular disease – May 2018

Professor Nita Forouhi provided expert commentary to the Science Media Centre on a new paper in the journal Heart from the China Kadoorie Biobank Collaborative Group which found that a moderate level of egg consumption was significantly associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease, largely independent of other risk factors.

In her comment Professor Forouhi said:

“…it is important to emphasize that eggs are not eaten in isolation, and overall healthy or unhealthy dietary patterns will always matter. This means what you eat with the eggs matters, based on the other research to-date. In a Western context, if you eat eggs with lots of refined white bread, processed meats like bacon and sausages and sugar-rich ketchup, that is materially different to eating an egg with whole-grain bread and vegetables for instance.”

Finding alternatives to the car for travel could lower risk of illness and death – May 2018

A new paper in the journal Heart, published on Monday 21 May 2018 by Dr Jenna Panter and colleagues at the Unit and CEDAR, found that people who are more active when commuting to work by walking or cycling could be cutting their relative risk of developing ischaemic heart disease or stroke by 11%, and their relative risk of dying from these diseases by 30%. They used data on 358,799 participants in the UK Biobank.

We uncovered the genetic basis of risk taking – and found it’s linked to obesity and mental illness – May 2018

On Friday 04 May 2018, Emma Clifton, Felix Day and Ken Ong from the Unit’s Growth and Development Programme  published an article in The Conversation discussing the implications of their new genetics research, which has revealed 26 variants in regions of the human genome that are associated with a self-reported inclination toward risk taking.

Using Google Street View to estimate travel patterns in cities – May 2018

On Wednesday 02 May 2018, researchers led by Dr Rahul Goel and Dr James Woodcock at the MRC Epidemilogy Unit published a paper in PLOS ONE indicating that Google Street View has the potential to estimate how common cycling is in cities, and potentially other travel patterns too.

Their analysis of 2,000 Google Street View images from 1,000 random locations in each of 34 cities in Great Britain found strong agreement with data on cycling, and public transport and motorbike use from the 2011 census and annual Active People Survey.

BBC One: The Truth About…Obesity – April 2018

Dr Tom Burgoine from the Unit’s Social, Economic and Neighbourhood Determinants of Diet programme was interviewed on the BBC One programme ‘The Truth About…Obesity’ which aired on thursday 26 April, where he discussed the impact of our food environment, and in particular fast food outlets, on how we eat and the obesity crisis. .

England’s NHS Health Check Programme Saving Lives – March 2018

On Tuesday 06 March 2018, researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and MRC Biostatistics Unit led by Dr Oliver Mytton published a paper in PLOS Medicine indicating that the NHS Health Check programme prevents around 300 premature deaths and results in more people living free of cardiovascular disease in England each year.

The study also suggested that there is significant scope to increase the benefits of the programme, with feasible changes in the delivery of the programme yielding up to a three-fold increase in the benefits.

Professor Nita Forouhi on BBC’s Trust Me I’m a Doctor – January 2018

On Wednesday 10 January 2018 Professor Nita Forouhi, programme leader with our Nutritional Epidemiology team, appeared with Professor Kay-Tee Khaw of the Department of Public health and Primary care on BBC2’s Trust Me I’m a Doctor to discuss a trial to evaluate the effect of consuming coconut oil on cholesterol levels.

Coconut oil is an increasingly popular food, with many claims made about its potential health benefits, but there are also concerns about negative health impacts due to its very high levels of saturated fat. The trial designed by Professor Forouhi and Professor Khaw measured  LDL and HDL cholesterol levels in almost 100 participants before and after they consumed 50 grams of either coconut oil, olive oil, or butter a day for four weeks. A paper reporting the study has been published in BMJ Open.

Professor Forouhi was interviewed about the trial on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (item starts at at 1:50:50) and it was also reported on the BBC Today Programme(Starts 54:10), BBC Breakfast News (Starts at 1:40:00), BBC Radio Wales, BBC News online, The Times, Independent, Daily Mail, BT, Independent (Niger), and Version Weekly. 

Expert reaction to study looking at walking in a polluted street and a park, and cardiorespiratory health – December 2017

Dr Marko Tainio of the Public Health Modelling programme provided a  comment to the Science Media Centre on new Lancet paper examining the impact of air pollution on the benefits of walking in older people, providing valuable balance to the reporting of the story. Marko was subsequently quoted at length in an article on CNN.

Children in poor areas exposed to five times as many fast food takeaways – December 2017

An analysis by the Guardian using data provided by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) and Ordnance Survey has revealed that pupils attending school in the most deprived areas are exposed to five times as many fast food outlets as those in the wealthiest areas. Previous research by Dr Tom Burgoine and colleagues at CEDAR found that a higher exposure to fast food outlets was associated with a higher risk of obesity.

Dr Burgoine was also quoted in a BBC Reality check article on the analysis, and the story was also reported in Quartz.

The Guardian covered the launch of the Food environment assessment tool (Feat) in July 2017 (see below), and has compiled their coverage of takeaway food at www.theguardian.com/inequality/series/fast-food-uk

Sales of sugar-sweetened drinks in Jamie’s Italian restaurants fall by 11% after 10p levy – October 2017

New research published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health shows that introducing a small levy of 10 pence per drink to the price of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) sold in Jamie’s Italian restaurants across the UK is likely to have contributed to a significant decline in SSB sales.

After adjusting for general trends in sales the researchers, who included Martin White,  Jean Adams and Oliver Mytton  from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research, found that adding a 10 pence levy to SSBs sold in 37 Jamie’s Italian restaurants, combined with activities such as re-designing menus, offering new lower sugar drinks and related publicity, was associated with an 11% decline in sales of SSBs per customer 12 weeks after the levy was introduced. A decline in sales of 9.3% per customer was still observed six months after the levy was introduced, and reductions were greatest in restaurants with higher SSB sales per customer. The authors say further research with a longer follow-up is required to assess whether this is sustained.

Commenting on the results, Professor White says:

This is an important piece of research which explored how a fiscal intervention and associated publicity affected consumer choices in a national restaurant chain. Further research is needed to work out how such levies can best be used in different settings and circumstances. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes and tooth decay are serious conditions that have a huge impact on health. Population interventions of this sort could be vital in combating them.”

Research articles

Coverage

This paper received wide national and international news coverage, including the BBC, CNN, Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail, Metro and Huffington Post, and over 100 articles were published in online news outlets.

Large studies find screening reduces mortality for those with detectable type 2 diabetes but not for general population – August 2017

Three large studies published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) involving researchers from the MRC Epidemiology Unit show that screening for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors may not reduce mortality and cardiovascular disease in the general population. However, for individuals diagnosed with diabetes, screening is associated with a reduction in mortality and cardiovascular disease risk.

The first two studies, both led by Dr Rebecca Simmons of the Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark, and the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK, used data from ADDITION-Denmark, part of the Anglo-Danish-Dutch Study of Intensive Treatment in People with Screen-Detected Diabetes In Primary Care. The third study, led by Dr Adina Feldman and Professor Olov Rolandsson from the VIPCAM collaboration between the University of Cambridge, UK, and Umeå University, Sweden, used  data collected as part of the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), a large community- and individual-based intervention in Västerbotten County, Sweden.

Taking these results together, Dr Simmons says:

Screening appears to offer beneficial effects for all those diagnosed with diabetes, regardless of whether they were screen detected or clinically diagnosed but this benefit is too small to have an impact on overall population risk of heart disease and stroke, for example, or on early death.”

Research articles

Commentary

Coverage

These papers were reported by several national and international online health news outlets, including MedicalXpress, Science Daily, Diabetes.co.uk, and Aerzteblatt.de.

Food environment assessment tool (Feat) launched – July 2017

The Food environment assessment tool (Feat) is underpinned by the latest scientific evidence about how food access in our neighbourhoods affects our dietary choices, body weight and health. It allows for detailed exploration of the geography of food retail access across England.  Feat has been developed by CEDAR and the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge and is powered by data from Ordnance Survey. It allows users to map, measure and monitor access to food outlets at a neighbourhood level, including changes over time, and is designed around the needs of professionals in public health, environmental health and planning roles, locally and nationally.

We worked with The Guardian newspaper as part of the Feat launch. The paper covered it from a number of angles:

The paper has compiled more of their coverage of takeaway food at www.theguardian.com/inequality/series/fast-food-uk

A number of other national and local outlets picked up the story. Feat was covered in the Mirror and International Business Times, and over the following week several local newspapers around England published articles on the growth of takeaway numbers in their area. Dr Tom Burgoine, who led development of Feat, was interviewed by several radio stations including Radio 5 Live.

First genes that influence muscle strength in humans identified – July 2017

A study led by MRC Epidemiology Unit researchers has identified 16 common genetic factors that influence muscle strength in humans, using data on hand grip strength from more than 140,000 participants in the UK Biobank study, combined with 50,000 additional individuals from the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Australia.

Many of these variants were located within or near to genes known to play a role in biological processes highly relevant to muscle function, and several of these genes are known to be associated with severe monogenic syndromes characterised by compromised muscle function.

Hand grip strength has previously been reported to be associated with health outcomes such as risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, and fracture, although it has been unclear whether variation in strength actually causes these outcomes, or simply reflects underlying disease processes.

Using the sixteen genetic variants identified for strength, the researchers investigated the hypothesised causal link, finding evidence that higher muscular strength reduces risk of fracture, a finding that supports the use of strength training interventions as a strategy to reduce risk of fractures.

Dr Robert Scott, a former member of the Aetiology of Diabetes and related Metabolic Disorders programme now working at GSK, said:

“While we have long suspected a role for genetics in the variation in muscle strength, these findings give the first insights into some of the specific genetic variants that underpin variation in strength.

These could be important steps towards identifying new treatments to prevent or treat muscle weakness.”

Generation Genome – Chief Medical Officer’s annual report – July 2017

On Tuesday 4 July Professor Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England, published Generation Genome, the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report for 2016. In her report she takes a detailed look at genomics, exploring how we currently utilise genomics in our health and care system and presenting a series of recommendations for how its potential may be developed.

Scientists from the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science (IMS) a made major contributions to the report, and led the writing of several individual chapters.

Welcoming the publication of the report, Dr Claudia Langenberg, Editor-in-Chief of Generation Genome and a Programme Leader in the Aetiology of Diabetes and related Metabolic Disorders programme, said:

“Generation Genome’ sets out the potential for genomic medicine to benefit patients in this country. I hope that CMO’s recommendations will help to realise this potential and accelerate the implementation of equitable genomics-based care. Obesity is an example that demonstrates the power of genomic science to both improve the care of patients with rare diseases and identify causes of complex yet common diseases in the population. ”

Extending weight loss programmes can help people who are overweight keep more weight off, and is cost-effective – May 2017

Extending NHS weight loss programmes from one session per week for 12-weeks to one session per week for a year helped people who are overweight to lose more weight and keep it off for longer, according to a study published in The Lancet, and led by Dr Amy Ahern of our Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders programme.

The 12-week programme was predicted to prevent more illnesses than the self-help intervention due to greater weight loss. Over 25 years, the cost to the NHS of providing the programme would be more than offset by the later savings as a result of reductions in disease, resulting in an overall cost-saving of £268,000 per 100,000 individuals.

Offering a year-long programme was estimated to prevent an additional 1786 cases of disease (including 642 fewer cases of hypertension, 373 fewer cases of diabetes and 104 fewer cases of heart disease) for every 100,000 people, compared to the 12-week programme. While the costs of the year-long intervention were not outweighed by the cost-savings on NHS treatment of weight-related illnesses, the cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) – a metric that values both the length of time people live and the quality of that life – gained was only £2,394 compared to the brief intervention, and £3,804 compared to the 12-week programme. NICE usually consider treatments to be worth funding if the cost per QALY gained is less than about £20,000, so, although it was more expensive upfront, the study shows that the year-long programme is cost-effective over 25 years by preventing more cases of weight related illness.

Study identifies hundreds of genes that influence timing of puberty and alter risk of several cancers – April 2017

The timing of puberty varies widely between individuals but tends to run closely within families. Earlier puberty timing may have advantages for some adolescents, for example for boys who engage actively in sports, but it appears to have largely negative effects on later health, such as higher risks of heart disease and some cancers.

In the largest genomic analysis of puberty timing in men and women conducted to date, and published in Nature Genetics,  researchers led by Dr Felix Day and Dr John Perry of our Growth and Development programme identified 389 genetic signals associated with puberty timing in 329,345 women, four times the number that were previously known. Many of these genetic associations were also found to influence age at voice breaking, a comparable measure of puberty timing in men. The study also found new genetic evidence linking earlier timing of puberty to higher risk of several cancers known to be sensitive to sex-hormones in later life, including breast, ovary and endometrial cancers in women, and prostate cancer in men. These influences remained after controlling for body weight, which is important as body weight itself influences both the timing of puberty and the risk of some cancers.

Unravelling the mystery of the disappearing chromosomes – March 2017

A study of over 85,000 men and 96,000 women, led by PhD Student Dan Wright and colleagues from our Aetiology of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders and Growth and Development programmes, along with researchers from deCODE genetics in Iceland, and published in Nature Genetics, uncovered key genetic factors that influence the rate at which men and women lose chromosomes from their cells as they age.

The study focused on cells missing the Y chromosome, the most common genetic defect in circulating white blood cells. The Y chromosome has the smallest number of genes of any human chromosome, and its genes have a relatively restricted pattern of activity, so in most tissues its’ loss is better tolerated than that of other chromosomes. By measuring this in over 85,000 men, including 67,000 men participating in UK Biobank, in addition to 18,000 men from the EPIC-Norfolk and deCODE studies, the researchers identified 19 gene regions which appear to regulate this defect.

Preventing weight gain in adults important to reduce incidence of type 2 diabetes – February 2017

A study of over 33,000 people, published in BMC Public Health, and led by Dr Adina Feldman of our Prevention of Diabetes and Related Metabolic Disorders programme,  indicates that health strategies that aim to prevent adult weight gain in the whole population have the potential to prevent twice as many cases of type 2 diabetes as strategies that target individuals at high risk of diabetes due to being obese.

Current clinical practice and public health programmes generally target those at high risk of type 2 diabetes, such as people who are obese and have higher than normal blood glucose. While these programmes may be effective for the individuals targeted, their potential to impact the prevalence of diabetes in the whole population is limited.

The researchers from the VIPCAM collaboration between the MRC Epidemiology Unit and the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umeå University analysed data from 33,184 people aged 30-60 years. They researchers able to determine the association between change in body weight between baseline and 10 year follow-up and occurrence of newly diagnosed diabetes. They estimated that if everyone who gained weight had maintained their weight, regardless of their starting weight, one in five of all type 2 diabetes cases in the population could have been prevented.

Inability to safely store fat increases risk of diabetes and heart disease – November 2016

In a paper published in Nature Genetics researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, led by Clinical Career Development Fellow Dr Luca Lotta, reported strong evidence that the development of insulin resistance results from the failure to safely store excess fat in the body.

In a study of over two million genetic variants in almost 200,000 people the researchers identified 53 gene variants that were associated associated with insulin resistance and a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease. A follow-up study with over 12,000 participants in the Fenland and EPIC-Norfolk studies, each of whom underwent a body scan that shows fat deposits in different regions of the body, found that having a greater number of these variants was associated with having lower amounts of fat under the skin, particularly in the lower half of the body.

“Some is good, more is better”: Regular exercise can cut your diabetes risk – October 2016

In a systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis of 28 prospective cohort studies that included 1,261,991 individuals by researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and UCL found that any amount of physical activity can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but the more physical activity the greater the reduction.

The research, published in the journal Diabetologia, is the most comprehensive study to look at the impact of exercise, independent of other behavioural factors such as diet, on a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The analysis showed that doing the 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity UK Department of Health can reduce a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes by up to 26%, and that increasing to an hour of moderate to vigorous exercise every day can reduce their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 40%.

New genetic analysis provides insight into side effects of cholesterol lowering drugs – October 2016

In a meta-analysis of data from 50,775 people with type 2 diabetes and 270,269 people without diabetes, and 60,801 individuals with coronary artery disease and 123,504 without, Unit researchers investigated the association between type 2 diabetes and genetic variants that reduce cholesterol levels by influencing different cholesterol-related biological pathways. These included pathways that are targeted by current cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins, ezetimibe and PCSK9-inhibitors.

The Meta-analysis, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), was led by Dr Luca Lotta, a Clinical Career Development Fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and  Professor Nick Wareham, Director of the MRC Epidemiology Unit.

Their analysis found that people with genetic variants associated with lower blood cholesterol had a lower risk of heart attack, but a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. They also found that the reduction in the risk of a heart attack was proportional to the reduction in blood cholesterol for all the different pathways investigated. However, the association with type 2 diabetes was different for different pathways, and not proportional to the reduction in blood cholesterol.

Mediterranean diet could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the UK – September 2016

In an analysis of data from the EPIC-Norfolk Study, published in BMC Medicine, Unit researchers showed that healthy individuals with greater adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet had about an 11% lower risk of future cardiovascular disease compared to individuals who had poor adherence. The work was led by PhD student Tammy Tong, together with colleagues Dr Fumiaki Imamura, Professor Nicholas Wareham, Professor Kay-Tee Khaw, and Dr Nita Forouhi.

The Mediterranean diet is typically high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and olive oil, while low in red meats and moderate in dairy, fish, poultry and wine. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends a Mediterranean based diet for people already diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. However, until now the association of the Mediterranean diet with both preventing the disease occurring in the first instance and preventing further cardiovascular episodes had not been examined in the UK.

How baby’s genes influence birth weight and health in later life – September 2016

An international genetic study of more than 150,000 people, published in Nature,  identified genetic differences that help to explain why some babies are born bigger or smaller than others. The study was co-led by Unit scientists Dr. Felix day, Dr John Perry, and Dr. Ken Ong, and used data from the UK Biobank study in combination with data from more than 30 other genetic studies.

The large-scale study revealed how these genetic differences provide an important link between an individual’s early growth and their chances of developing conditions such as type 2 diabetes or heart disease in later life,  and could help to identify new ways of preventing and treating these diseases.

An hour of moderate exercise a day enough to counter health risks from prolonged sitting – July 2016

In an analysis published in The Lancet that draws together a number of existing studies, an international team of researchers led by Ulf Ekelund asked the question: if an individual is active enough, can this reduce, or even eliminate, the increased risk of early death associated with sitting down? The researchers found that 60 to 75 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per day were sufficient to eliminate the increased risk of early death associated with sitting for over eight hours per day. However, as many as three out of four people in the study failed to reach this level of daily activity.

MRC Epidemiology Unit heads up PLOS diabetes special issue – July 2016

Professor Nick Wareham, along with Professor William Herman, Director of the Michigan Center for Diabetes Translational Research, were guest editors on a PLOS Medicine special issue focusing on diabetes prevention, which was published in July 2016.

The special issue featured research articles and perspectives that show the strength, depth and breadth of research being undertaken into the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes, several of which were co-authored by researchers from the MRC Epidemiology Unit.

MRC Festival of Medical Research – Are you in a healthy place? – June 2016

The inaugural MRC Festival of Medical Research took place on 18-26 July, with more than 50 individual events taking place in cities across the UK and in the Gambia.

The Unit’s event was an interactive evening on 22 June: Are you in a Healthy Place? Travel, food and our neighbourhoods. Thomas Burgoine and David Ogilvie explored the latest research from the MRC Epidemiology Unit about how our neighbourhoods influence how we get around and what we eat, and what this is doing to our bodies.

Genetic approach to identifying side-effects at early stages of drug development – June 2016

A genetic analysis approach that could reduce the chances of drugs failing during the later stages of clinical trials has been demonstrated in a Unit co-led collaboration between the University of Cambridge and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The technique involves identifying genetic variants that mimic the action of a drug on its intended target and then checking in large patient cohorts whether these variants are associated with risk of other conditions, such as cardiovascular disease.

Neighbourhoods with more takeaways amplify social inequalities in diet and obesity – May 2016

People who live or work near to a greater number of takeaway outlets are more likely to eat more takeaway food and to be overweight. And new findings from CEDAR indicate that neighbourhoods saturated with fast food outlets may be particularly unhealthy for people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Walking and cycling are good for health even in cities with higher levels of air pollution – May 2016

A modeling study from the Unit and CEDAR showing that the health benefits of walking and cycling outweigh the negative effects on health of air pollution, even in cities with high levels of air pollution. This new evidence strengthens the case for supporting cycling even in polluted cities – an effort that in turn can help reduce vehicle emissions.

UK Biobank study identifies gene changes that influence timing of sexual behaviour – April 2016

A Unit-led study of over 380,000 people, published in the journal Nature Genetics, identified gene variations that influence the age of puberty, first sexual intercourse and first birth.

Children aren’t active enough in winter, especially at weekends – February 2016

Researchers at the MRC Epidemiology Unit have called for children to be given more support to enable them to be more active during the winter, particularly at weekends, in response to new findings that children are less active and spend more time sitting in autumn and winter compared to other times of the year.

Tackling obesity and diabetes on Star2.com – December 2015 – February 2016

Star2.com, a popular online Malaysian news and lifestyle magazine, has published a fascinating series on obesity and diabetes.  The articles were written by Tan Shiow Chin, a 2015 Khazanah-Wolfson Press Fellow at Wolfson College, following interviews with experts from the University of Cambridge earlier in 2015, including several Unit and CEDAR researchers.

The articles included.

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