Grant: Environments, Genes and Chronic Disease - LOI

Obesity significantly increases a person's risk of many diseases, including diabetes, which is the leading cause of heart disease, kidney failure, adult blindness, and limb amputations. Diabetes affects 3 million Canadians, contributes to >40,000 deaths per year, and accounts for ~$17 billion in annual health costs (www.diabetes.ca; www.idf.org). Type 2 diabetes (T2D), responsible for ~90% of this burden, results from the action of diverse environmental exposures in genetically predisposed individuals. While some general principles associated with the pathogenesis of obesity and T2D are well accepted, the precise molecular causes of these conditions and the environment-gene interaction remain unclear. This Program will identify causal genetic mechanisms that increase the risk of T2D, and the impact of environmental exposures including dietary factors and persistent environmental chemicals on the genetic mechanisms controlling human insulin secretion and T2D.