Approved research

Using UK Biobank for ageing and disease relationship studies.

Lay summary

The nature of the association between ageing and age-related diseases has not yet been thoroughly studied mainly due to lack of comprehensive datasets. In this study, we propose a systematic analysis of the link between ageing and age-related diseases. Our assumption is that age-related diseases have ageing factors contributing to their occurrence in addition to disease intrinsic mechanisms. We aim to identify these factors and associated health-related outcomes. We therefore wish to study all health conditions which show a correlation with ageing. Ageing is seen as the major risk factor for many pathologies including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and neurodegenerative diseases. Understanding the factors contributing the rate of ageing can help preventing these age-related diseases. We aim to identify the above-mentioned ageing factors through GWAS on patients with different ages of diagnosis, correcting for occurrence of other diseases, lifestyle and demographic information. Meta-analysis of multiple age-related diseases will enable us to distinguish between robust ageing-related genomic factors and disease specific mechanisms. We would create age-of-onset cohorts for the different diseases, such as stroke, cardiovascular etc. Full cohort