几十年来我国居民经历了快速的营养转型,与不健康的膳食和生活方式相关的"致肥环境",以及遗传倾向是导致我国慢性代谢性疾病如代谢综合征和2型糖尿病快速流行的主要推手。然而,我国目前非常缺乏针对导致慢性代谢性疾病的主要遗传和环境危险因素而开展的系统研究。在过去若干年中,通过开展基于社区人群的流行病学研究,本课题组发现了多个与代谢性疾病相关的基因变异、环境因素和生物标记物。与此同时,通过对代谢综合征或2型糖尿病患者进行的营养干预,发现添加亚麻子或其衍生物木酚素、核桃,以及用糙米替代白米能不同程度地改善代谢综合征或血糖控制。总之,所有努力旨在增进对导致中国人代谢性疾病高易感性相关的病因和机制的理解,同时也希望为疾病的预测和预防提供新的思路和线索。
China has experienced rapid nutrition transition in recent decades. Unhealthy diet and lifestyle associated obesogenic environment, along with genetic predisposition, are major drivers for the epidemic of metabolic diseases such as metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes in Chinese. However, limited studies have systematically investigated major genetic and environmental risk factors in the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases among Chinese. In last several years, we have conducted community-based epidemiologic studies. Multiple gene variants, environmental factors and biomarkers were found to be associated with metabolic diseases among Chinese population. Meanwhile, in our nutrition intervention trials, supplementing flaxseed, lignan or walnuts, as well as substituting white rice with brown rice were showed to improve management of metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes. All efforts are made to underline etiology and mechanism(s) linking to higher susceptibility of metabolic diseases in Chinese people and also provide new insights for disease prediction and prevention.