Grant: Project Grant

Obesity is considered as one of the most important health problem worldwide. A wealth of evidence suggests that obesity is the result of unhealthy eating and lifestyle behaviors leading to weight gain in individuals with a genetic susceptibility to obesity. The identification of hundreds of genes associated with obesity has provided the framework for development of precision medicine as an approach to personalize the prevention and/or treatment of obesity based on genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. Up until now, precision medicine has mostly focused on genetic factors to predict disease risk and design tailored interventions to reduce risk and less on lifestyle and environmental factors which are of utmost importance for preventing chronic diseases like obesity. The concept of precision lifestyle medicine has emerged to reflect the importance of considering nutrition and lifestyle in the next generation of personalized lifestyle interventions. To design personalized lifestyle interventions aimed at preventing obesity, we first need to identify the unhealthy nutritional and lifestyle behaviors through which obesity susceptibility genes affect body weight. The objective of proposed research is to address this question by identifying nutritional and lifestyle factors mediating genetic susceptibility in large population-based cohorts of adults and children. The main outcome of this research will be identified nutrition and lifestyle factors mediating genetic susceptibility to obesity and weight gain in both adults and children that will be targets for modification in a future intervention trial aimed at preventing and managing obesity in individuals at risk.