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FOLKEHELSE-Folkehelse

Early life, environmental and genetic determinants of weight-related disorders among teenagers in Finland, Norway, Sweden, UK, USA and India

Awarded: NOK 7.7 mill.

The consortium aims to develop a series of studies of the genetic and environmental influences on health and behavior among adolescent children in Finland, Norway, and the UK (applying consortium members), in collaboration with other research groups worki ng with teenagers and young adults in India, the US and Sweden. Our consortium is composed of several existing large cohort studies in these countries and a large new cohort in Finland. This consortium will be probably largest resources for studies on ad olescent health ever put together with over 80,000 youth included. Our primary objective for this application will be to understand why children become overweight, obese, or eating disordered. Overweight among children is a growing public health problem in Western countries, with devastating social, medical and economic implications. Understanding the determinants of excessive weight gain and eating disorders will make public health authorities better positioned to propose public health interventions for prevention. Similar data is collected by questionnaires and anthropometric measures from both youth and parents. Biological samples will be available from all countries. We will study the combined role of diet patterns, physical activity, sleeping durat ion and patterns, and emotional and mental health in development of overweight, obesity, and eating disorders. We will also investigate how common variations in genes that have been shown or hypothesized to affect the development of obesity and eating dis orders interact with these other factors. Associations with a polymorphism of the promoter region of the serotonin (5-HTT) transporter gene (HTTLPR) and a set of SNPs in the first intron of FTO, which are all believed to be related to eating disorders or weight dysregulation will be assessed. To assure comparability of results genetic analysis will be carried out in each country with shared study protocols and exchange of samples between laboratories.

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FOLKEHELSE-Folkehelse