Recent Special Seminars
A list of forthcoming Special Seminars can be viewed here.
Tuesday 22 March 2011 , 12:30pm
Canynge Hall, room LG.03
Prof. Annie S. Anderson BSc PhD SRD - Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research, Centre for Research into Cancer Prevention and Screening, University of Dundee.
Lifestyle and Cancer Prevention in Public Health... research, practice and policy
Professor Annie S. Anderson is a Public Health Nutritionist and dietician with extensive experience in designing, implementing and evaluating lifestyle intervention trials whilst based at the Universities of Cambridge, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Dundee. Since taking up the post of Director at the Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research (University of Dundee Medical School) in 1997 a number of studies have contributed to a programme of work on theory based, behaviourally focused dietary interventions.
Tuesday 29 March 2011, 12:30pm
Oakfield House
Prof. Ana V. Diez-Roux M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H. - Professor of Epidemiology, Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan.
Understanding neighborhood health effects: can complex systems methods help?
This presentation will review existing challenges in estimating neighborhood health effects from observational data and will highlight the kinds of issues for which complex systems tools can be of use. The application of complex systems tools will be illustrated through two examples that use agent-based models to estimate neighborhood effects on diet and walking. The challenges in applying these tools in epidemiology and population health more generally will be discussed.
Tuesday 3 May 2011, 12:30pm
Oakfield House
José A. Tapia Granados MBBCh, MPH, Ph.D. - Assistant research scientist, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
Economic growth and health progress in England and Wales: 160 years of a changing relation
The relation between economic growth and health progress during the years 1840-2000 in England and Wales is analyzed using the increase in life expectancy at birth (LEB) or the decrease in mortality rates as indicators of health progress. A negative relation between year-to-year economic growth and annual health progress is found, so that the lower is the rate of growth of the economy, the greater is the annual increase in LEB (or the decline in mortality) for both males and females. The effect is much stronger in 1900-1950 than in 1950-2000, and is very weak in the 19th century. It appears basically at lag zero, though some short-lag effects of the same negative sign are found. In the other direction of causality only very small effects of changes in LEB on economic growth are found. These results add to an emerging consensus that mortality rates drop faster during recessions than during expansions, and show that in England and Wales this effect changed through time.
Monday 13 June, 3:30pm
Oakfield House, room OS6
CAiTE Seminar
Prof. Mark McCarthy - University of Oxford
Diamonds in the dirt - the search for biological insights and translational opportunities in large-scale genetic data
The discovery of loci robustly associated with conditions such as type-2 diabetes continues apace, with over 40 loci published (and another 20 under review). Next-generation sequencing efforts now underway promise to reveal additional low frequency and rare causal variants. The key challenges for the future lie in transmuting these genetic discoveries into biological insights relevant to disease pathogenesis; and in using this new knowledge to achieve clinical translation. I will describe some of our research in all three of these areas - discovery, biology and translation.
Tuesday 14 June, 12pm
Oakfield House, room OS6
CAiTE Seminar
Prof. Thorkild Sørensen - Institute Director, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Institute of Preventive Medicine, Copenhagen.
Implications of the inertness of triglycerides for obesity research
The risk functions for obesity (defined as the quantitative relation between degree of obesity throughout its range and the risk of health problems) have been used to define ‘obesity' as an excess storage of fat in the body to such an extent that it causes health problems leading to increased mortality.
The lipotoxicity theory implies that the fat stored in droplets of triglycerides in the cells are biologically inert and that the metabolic dysfunctions are primarily due to the increased exposure of the cells to fatty acids. If this is true, it has profound implications for the interpretations of the multiple epidemiological studies of the risk functions. It is obvious from all these studies that the sizes of the fat depots are risk indicators of health effects in various ways. Paradoxically, the sizes of the fat stores are also indicators of the preceding implementation of the ability of the body to protect itself against the toxic effects of the free fatty acids. The current risk of metabolic dysfunctions appears to be determined by the balance between the rate of loading of the body with fatty acids and the rate of eliminating the fatty acids by either triglyceride storage or oxidation. The progress in the development of the dysfunction then depends on the persistence of the imbalance leading to future cumulative exposure of the cells to the toxic effects of the fatty acids rather than on the current size of the fat depots.
This may be considered as a reason for changing the definition of obesity to one based on better estimates of future risks of health problems derived from later metabolic dysfunctions rather than on the past coping with the exposure to the fatty acids by storage as triglycerides. Implementation of such definition would require a test that measures this residual capacity to avoid excess exposure of the cells to the fatty acids before the metabolic dysfunctions have emerged. In analogy with the glucose tolerance test, a fatty acid tolerance test may be needed to identify individuals who are at a level of risk for developing lipotoxicity induced metabolic dysfunctions such that they require intervention. This test would ideally be a single biomarker that would determine residual capacity for adipose expansion, fatty acid oxidation and safe ectopic lipid deposition.
Friday 24 June, 12:30pm
Oakfield House, room OS6
CAiTE Seminar
Dr. D Prabhakaran - Director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC), New Delhi
The Determinants, Dynamics and Dimensions of Cardiovascular Disease in India
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of disability and death in India and is projected to result in a cumulative loss of $237 billion to the Indian economy. The high burden of CVD is attributed to changes in lifestyles related to demographic transition. The underlying determinants lie in socio-behavioural factors such as smoking, physical inactivity, improper diet and stress all of which lead to an increase in CVD risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity.
South Asians (SA) were first demonstrated to have high propensity to Coronary Heart Disease through migrant studies leading to the speculation that the causes of CVD among SA could be different from populations elsewhere, specifically in terms of risk factors. Recent studies comparing Indian migrants and their counterparts in India have highlighted the importance of conventional risk factors in the epidemiology of CVDs in India. The large INTERHEART study also revealed that SA had lower level of protective life-style factors such as leisure time physical activity and regular intake of fruits and vegetables, with higher levels of harmful risk factors such as elevated ApoB/Apo A-1 ratio. Further, incident MI occurred at least 5-10 years earlier as compared to other populations.A reversal of social gradient has also been observed for several CVD risk factors like smoking and high blood pressure in the Indian population.
Despite obtaining clues to the high burden of CHD among Indians there are still some unanswered questions. These include the increased susceptibility to central obesity and its atherogenic consequences and the reasons for higher proportion of body fat despite normal weight. Further, the genetic, environmental and evolutionary pathways and their interaction in the causation of CVD among Indians are still to be explored. The role of macro and micronutrients in the Indian diet also need special attention; the role of Polypill in Indian settings and alternate strategies such as the role of community health workers and the advances in the use of mobile phone technology in combating CVD in India needs to be evaluated.
This seminar will present an overview of the determinants, dynamics and dimensions of Cardiovascular Disease in India and focus on some of the research initiatives that seek to bridge the research –practice-policy interface in the current scenario. The application of these initiatives for other developing country settings is emphasized.
The speaker Dr. D. Prabhakaran, a cardiologist and epidemiologist heads the Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) and is the Deputy Director of the South Asian Network for Chronic Diseases (SANCD) in New Delhi, India. As Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology and the international Program Director for the Fogarty International Center at the Public Health Foundation of India, he has been pivotal in strengthening international collaboration and partnering between several hospitals and academic institutions, and in creating a multidisciplinary research culture for higher education. Dr. Prabhakaran has brought his expertise in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and health research methods to the launching of several innovative public health research initiatives targeted at reducing the current escalating trends in chronic diseases in India.