We study associations between lifestyle factors, genetic and disease in human populations. Molecular epidemiology can be used as a tool to gain knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of health effects of dietary and environmental factors such as for example alcohol intake, intakes of meat, fruit and vegetables and air pollution in relation risk of disease. The advantages of these studies are that humans are studied instead of animal models or cell lines and that doses that are relevant to human health are assessed.
We specifically search for gene-diet or gene-environment interactions because these interactions indicate that specific biological processes are involved in the development of the studied disease and therefore provide information about how the studied dietary or environmental factor promotes disease.
Knowledge about the mechanism of action behind the disease risk makes it possible to screen other compounds for similar effects and to provide better public health recommendations and risk assessments.
We study:
gene-environment interactions
characterisation of biological effects of genetic variations
