Cardiometabolic disorders, including diabetes and hypertension, are a complex and interdisciplinary public health challenge at a global level. While primary health screening leads to early diagnosis, prevention is the true goal. Indians are amongst the highest risk groups globally for development and progression of cardiometabolic disorders.
We need greater efforts towards understanding of genetic and lifestyle risks that are driving this epidemic.
Sanjay Rajagopalan, Robert D. Brook; Air Pollution and Type 2 Diabetes: Mechanistic Insights. Diabetes 1 December 2012; 61 (12): 3037-3045. https://doi.org/10.2337/db12-0190
In the long term, we aim to build a strong collaborative initiative with hospitals, industries, other research organizations and policy makers to fight the challenge of cardiometabolic disease in India. Such collaborative efforts will be crucial in designing efficient strategies for prevention and hopefully cure.Â
Build PHP database: From patient care centers of Max Healthcare. Data consists of health screening data including standard biochemical assays and associated clinical metadata
Identify subjects for deeper studies: A random sample and extreme contrasting phenotypes e.g. older obese subjects in good cardiometabolic health and younger lean subjects with cardiometabolic disease would be selected for further investigations (prospective arm) including dietary questionnaires, health apps for dietary assessments and recommendations, gut health markers, gut microbiome studies, and genomics.Â
Computational Biomedicine: Apply appropriate statistical machine learning, network biology & computational genomics approaches to gain insight from the PHP database (clinical parameters, dietary habits, gut-microbiome profiles and genomics)Â Â
Translation: Develop an understanding of whether modifiable gut health interventions can change cardiometabolic risk
Outreach: Collaborate to communicate the findings effectively with clinicians, policy makers and citizens in a palatable, innovative formatÂ
As a part of Ashoka Centre for Research on Wellness and Nutrition (CROWN), we tackle aspects of personalized nutrition to increase wellness, working at the cutting edge of biomedicine and data science. The project is also unique in it’s attempt to address larger issues such as later life management of early life undernutrition and low birth weight. A collaborative mesh of academia, hospitals, industry and policy makers guides such endeavours.
Ashoka University and Max Healthcare Institute collaboration aims to build a joint research program on Preventive Healthcare Programme.
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Prof. Anurag Agrawal, Dean, Biosciences & Health Research at Ashoka University, is leading the PHP project. |
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Dr. Rintu Kutum is a Faculty Fellow at the Department of Computer Science at Ashoka University. He deals with the computational biomedicine part of the PHP project. |
The PHP project, in collaboration between Ashoka University & Max Healthcare, is funded by the intramural grant from Trivedi School of Biosciences (TSB).