Obesity has been recognized as a significant public health concern, especially as 20th century urban development encouraged more sedentary lifestyles and car-dependent transportation. A result of the interaction of genes, lifestyle, and the environment, obesity is an important issue for public health researchers and practitioners to understand. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded two projects to study the gene-environment causes of obesity, and an environments and health research consortium to support environments and health research more broadly. At this webinar, learn what the researchers have discovered and where they plan to take their research.
About the Projects
Gene Environment Team on brown/beige adipose tissue
More than 5 million Canadians have the chronic interrelated diseases of obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) and their incidence in the population are rapidly increasing. Obesity is an important risk factor for developing NAFLD and T2D which contribute to the development of liver cancer and heart disease. Therefore, designing new ways to treat or prevent T2D and NAFLD are important. In this proposal we will conduct studies in cells, mice and humans to examine how agricultural and food processing practices may regulate BAT metabolic activity directly or indirectly by altering the billions of bacteria that reside within our gastrointestinal tract. These studies will help us develop new strategies to enhance BAT activity that may be effective for treating and preventing obesity, NAFLD and T2D.
Determining the genetic and environmental factors associated with metabolic phenotypes across Canada
The program capitalizes on existing data and resources to address highly relevant questions for public health authorities, researchers, and health practitioners. The focus is on metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of medical conditions that are common in aging adults, including: obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and insulin resistance.The activities of this program are: (1) To quantify the effect of air pollution and built environment on MetS; (2) to study the effect of air pollution on molecular changes in DNA that regulate gene activity, and to determine if these changes are associated with MetS; (3) to map differences in the DNA code that regulate the expression of genes, and see if their effect are modified by environmental factors.
The Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium
The consortium will play a pivotal role in supporting the research needed to address these issues. We will accomplish this by linking standardized environmental exposure data about air quality, green spaces, walkability, noise and other aspects of the urban/suburban environment to existing human health data platforms. This will enable studies looking at how these factors affect health, from birth to old age. We will also be able to map, over time, where and how conditions are changing, and how that increases or decreases the risk of health impacts.
About the Presenters
Gene Environment Team on brown/beige adipose tissue
Dr. Gregory Steinberg is a professor of medicine at McMaster University where he holds a Canada Research Chair and a J. Bruce Duncan Endowed Chair in Metabolic Diseases and is Co-Director of the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research. His research studies cellular energy sensing mechanisms and how endocrine factors, lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity are linked and contribute to the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. He has published over 180 papers many in leading scientific journals. His scientific contributions have been recognized by the Endocrine Society, the American Diabetes Association, Diabetes Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research who have each presented him with early career outstanding scientific achievement awards.
Dr. Katherine Morrison is Co-Director of the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research (MODR) and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University. The newly developed Centre focuses on translational aspects of research at the interface of preclinical and clinical research. She is a clinician researcher, active clinically in the Pediatric Weight Management and Pediatric Lipid Clinics at McMaster Children’s Hospital where she is the medical director. Her research is focused on the etiology, consequences and treatment of obesity and lipid disorders in children. She leads a CIHR funded, Canadian multi-site study examining the influence of pediatric weight management programs on health outcomes in children with obesity and is co-PI on a CIHR-funded team grant seeking new pathways important to the development of obesity and its comorbidities. She led the pediatric aspects of the Canadian Clinical Practice Guideline for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity and is on the steering committee for the current work to update those guidelines. She is on the Advisory Board for the Ontario Pediatric Bariatric Network and co-leads the Working Group on Outcome Measurement. Dr. Morrison is dedicated to improving the health of Canadian children through research, improved clinical care and education.
Determining the genetic and environmental factors associated with metabolic phenotypes across Canada
Dr. Philip Awadalla, PhD, is National Scientific Director of CanPath (Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health), Director of Computational Biology and the Executive Scientific Director of Ontario Health Study at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, as well as a Professor of Population and Medical Genomics at the University of Toronto. He is Director of the Genome Canada, Canadian Data Integration Centre and a member of the International Hundred Thousand Consortium Steering Committee. He obtained his doctorate in population and statistical genetics from the University of Edinburgh and awarded NSERC, Killam, and Wellcome Trust Fellowships to pursue his postdoctoral work before taking faculty positions at North Carolina and the University of Montreal. He was previously the Scientific Director of CARTaGENE, and part of the analysis groups of the 1000 Genomes Program and Pan-cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes. Major current projects include genomics and computational approaches of aging, hematological diseases and cancers, as well as early-disease biomarker and drug development; other research focuses on approaches to identify genetic and environmental control points for infectious disease surveillance and resistance.
The Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium
Jeff Brook is an Associate Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto. Jeff was a tireless advocate for the creation of an environmental exposure data platform for many years, leading to the development of a funding call at the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the ultimate establishment of CANUE in June of 2016 in collaboration with many of Canada’s leading environmental health researchers. As CANUE’s Scientific Director, Jeff acts as the key liaison between environmental health research groups, in government and in academia, in Canada and internationally, toward keeping CANUE at the leading edge of environmental health research and policy. He brings 25 years of experience as an Environment Canada scientist working at the science-policy interface, 15 years of experience as an Adjunct at the University of Toronto, 12 years of leadership of the Environmental Working Group of the Canadian Health Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study, Canada’s largest birth cohort, and 5 years of service on the Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute (HEI) (Boston). Jeff has led scientific assessments to inform policy nationally and internationally, and advised multi-stakeholder groups shaping policy, and is one of Canada’s leading experts in air quality, recognized at all levels of government and academically, including for his substantial contributions in air pollution health research.
