Using genetics to understand changes in body weight over time and links to disease.

My research will go beyond existing studies to establish a better understanding of the relationship between weight fluctuation and diseases linked to obesity, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. Weight-fluctuations are common in people living with obesity.

My project is important because I will assess the contribution of patterns of weight fluctuation derived from longitudinal population data.

My project will be a major advance compared to previous studies that have focussed only on establishing links between one measure of weight and disease.

I will perform four sets of analysis that address the following questions: 1) What patterns of weight fluctuation occur in a population setting? 2) How does pattern and severity of weight fluctuation correlate with disease risk and mortality? 3) Are there genetic factors associated with variability in weight fluctuation and do these differ from those associated with single time-point measures of weight? 4) Is weight fluctuation causal for disease when accounting for current BMI?

I will use primary care data, lifestyle data, and genetic data from 500,000 individuals from the UK Biobank, with follow-up in 23,000 individuals from the Women’s Genome Health Study. Analyses will focus on weight change prior to developing a disease based on longitudinal primary care data.

The identification of causal associations between weight-fluctuation and disease will have important implications for public health strategies.

For example, if “yoyo” weight trajectories are causally associated with increased disease risk, these findings may help inform future intervention strategies by targeting individuals who experience weight-cycling.