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Approved research

Physical activity domains and profiles, and their relationships with biomarkers and cardiometabolic disease outcomes

Principal Investigator: Dr Miranda Armstrong
Approved Research ID: 30473
Approval date: February 29th 2016

Lay summary

Physical activity research usually only examines one or two aspects of physical activity, so little is known on how a person?s overall pattern of physical activity relates to their risk of chronic diseases. This project aims to assess the relationships between self-reported and measured physical activity and inactivity patterns, measures of individual characteristics (eg blood pressure, cholesterol) which may affect disease risk, and risk of disease outcomes themselves, including all-cause mortality, and mortality and incidence of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. This research may have important implications for physical activity guidelines and policy. The objective of the proposed research is to better understand the associations between overall physical activity profiles and cardiometabolic diseases, to inform public health guidelines and policy. Methods developed during this process may be related to a variety of other disease outcomes in the future. It therefore meets UK Biobank?s stated purpose: to ?support a diverse range of research intended to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness and the promotion of health throughout society.? This research will be conducted over several phases. In phase 1 we will investigate how people with different activity profiles differ in levels of biological markers (eg. blood pressure, cholesterol) important for the later development of cardiometabolic diseases. In Phase 2, we will investigate the relationships between self-reported domain specific and overall activity profiles, and different cardiometabolic disease outcomes. In phase 3, we will examine the same relationships as in phase 2, but will use objective activity data. The full cohort is requested for this study, both for cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Biomarker data from the standard panel will be requested as will measured activity (accelerometry) data for those on whom it has been measured.