Imperial College London
About the Project
Recent studies have identified a link between worsening airway diseases and metabolic dysfunction. Additionally, it appears that exogenous gut hormones help reduce this risk. Airways diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), affect over 10% of the UK population. Breathing-related issues, such as asthma attacks or acute COPD exacerbations, are the leading cause of emergency admissions in the UK. More than half of individuals with airway diseases are either overweight or obese, which places them at high risk of metabolic dysfunction. Many of these patients go on to develop type-2 diabetes, making them potential candidates for gut hormone treatments like GLP-1 receptor agonists. Preliminary evidence from observational studies using electronic health records suggests these medications may be effective in patients with airway diseases, though many questions remain unanswered.
This PhD is an exciting opportunity to conduct epidemiological research to investigate the association between gut hormones, metabolic dysfunction and amelioration of airways disease using large datasets including electronic health records and UK Biobank.
The student will be based in the department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction and will be supervised by Dr Ben Jones, (https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/ben.jones), an expert in gut hormones, and Dr Chloe Bloom, [email protected], (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/chloe.bloom06), a respiratory epidemiologist with many years’ experience of using national databases.
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