Approved Research

Pathogens and age-related chronic diseases

Lay summary

The public health burden of age-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and cognitive impairment, increases rapidly with an aging population. Previous studies have reported that pathogens (e.g. COVID-19) could cause the onset and progression of chronic diseases, especially in the elderly population. However, these studies failed to quantify these associations sufficiently due to their small sample sizes and unrelated factors (e.g. gender). UK biobank consists of a large population sample of 500,000 individuals and provides high-quality information on the disease effects of pathogens. We aim to explore the associations between pathogens and age-related chronic diseases and establish risk prediction models for age-related chronic diseases on an individual level. The tentative duration of the project is 36 months. We anticipate that the study findings would provide evidence supports for reducing the onset and deaths due to age-related chronic diseases in the UK and other global settings.