Current Events and Research Seminars
Speaker: Yashvee Dunneram, Postdoctoral Epidemiologist, Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford
Presentation: “Diet, women’s reproductive health and risk of cancers”
Date & Time: Monday 13 March 2023, 1-2pm
Venue: MED.L2.8, 2nd Floor, William Leech Building
Synopsis:
Menopause, defined as the complete cessation of menstrual periods, marks the end of the female reproductive life. With the ageing of the population, it is estimated that 1.2 billion women around the world will be menopausal by the year 2030. Menopausal transition could be an opportunity to encourage dietary changes. Diet of premenopausal women differs to that of postmenopausal women, reflecting improved adherence to dietary guidelines in the latter. However, a healthy diet during the premenopausal years is also recommended, as diet may potentially influence the timing of menopause as well as the presence of menopausal symptoms, in particular, vasomotor symptoms. For instance, women with an earlier menopause are at a higher risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases while women with a later onset of menopause are at a higher risk of breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers.
In recent years, vegetarian diets that do not contain meat, poultry and fish and vegan diets which excludes any animal foods including eggs and dairy products have gained popularity in Western countries. Previous studies including large numbers of vegetarians have shown a possible link between vegetarian diet and a lower risk of overall cancers. In studies like the EPIC-Oxford, the Adventist Health Study-2 and the UK Women’s Cohort Study, no association between vegetarian diet and risk of breast cancer has been reported while in the UK Biobank a lower risk of breast cancer was found among postmenopausal women. Due to the small number of site-specific cancers in the studies with large number of vegetarians, the findings for the association between vegetarian diets and risk of individual cancer sites remain sparse and inconclusive. Therefore, the Health in Vegetarians Consortium, a collaborating project including 11 studies from around the world with large number of vegetarians and data on cancer were pooled to obtain higher statistical power to investigate the relationship between these diet groups and the risk of site-specific cancers.
This presentation will explore the association between diet and the markers of female reproductive health, in particular, age of natural menopause and vasomotor symptoms, as well as the risk of breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers. Furthermore, an introduction on the newly set up Health in Vegetarians Consortium will be covered.
Biography:
Yashvee Dunneram is a postdoctoral epidemiologist mainly working on the Health in Vegetarians Consortium at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. Her research interest extend to several aspects of public health nutrition, with a particular focus on the role of diet as a risk factor for non-communicable diseases.
Yashvee joined the Cancer Epidemiology Unit in 2020 after completing her PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Leeds, where she used data from the UK Women’s Cohort Study and the International collaboration for a Life course Approach to reproductive health and Chronic disease Events (InterLACE) to look into the associations between diet and reproductive indicators of women’s health and reproductive health outcomes (e.g. breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers).
Speaker: Prof Jason Gill, School of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Health, University of Glasgow
Title of Talk: “The importance of place: How where you live and where your (grand) parents came from affects your metabolic health?”
Date and time: Monday 20 March 2023, 1300-1400hrs
Venue: Med.L2.8, 2nd Floor, Leech building
Synopsis:
Where we live and where our parents and grandparents came from can markedly affect our risk of developing cardiometabolic disease, and the effect of environmental factors and health behaviours on health outcomes. This talk will explore the effects of socio-economic status and ethnicity on risk of cardiometabolic disease and how the influence of obesity and physical inactivity on health appears to differ according to ethnic background. Current diet and physical activity interventions for weight loss and to improve glycaemic outcomes are less effective in non-white ethnic groups. The talk will explore how understanding the extent that ethnic differences in intervention effectiveness reflect differences in physiological response vs differences in engagement can help inform better interventions. Finally, the talk will consider the drivers of type 2 diabetes in low and middle-income countries, how these are not necessarily the same as those in high-income countries, and the implications of this for interventions to prevent diabetes in these settings.
Biography:
Jason Gill is Professor of Cardiometabolic Health in the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He leads an active multi-disciplinary research group investigating the effects of lifestyle on the prevention and management of vascular and metabolic diseases. This work includes studies into the epidemiology of lifestyle and cardiometabolic disease risk, particularly why certain population groups appear to have increased susceptibility to the adverse effects of an ‘unhealthy’ lifestyle; lifestyle interventions for the prevention and management of cardiometabolic disease; and investigations into the mechanisms by which diet and exercise regulate insulin sensitivity and lipoprotein metabolism. In recent years, he has become increasingly focused on collaborative projects involving biological and medical scientists working together with social scientists and external stakeholders to develop realistic and sustainable lifestyle interventions for the primary and secondary prevention of chronic diseases. Jason has contributed to the UK Physical Activity guidelines, NICE guidelines for prevention of type 2 diabetes, and SIGN guidelines for obesity and cardiovascular disease. He is chair of the Diabetes UK Research Strategy Group for Prevention and Management of Type 2 diabetes, and an editor at several journals including the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In addition, he is Director of the MSc in Sport and Exercise Science & Medicine at the University of Glasgow and plays an active role in communicating science related to physical activity, diet and obesity to the widest possible audience including a number of appearances on TV documentaries.