Back to reality

It’s Thursday and four days have passed since finishing the Ironman. I’m feeling good as new, and if it wasn’t for doctor’s advice not to run on the broken toe, I’d happily get out there and knock out a long run – I’m actually itching to do it, but I’ve opted for an 8.5km swim tomorrow morning instead. The water’s cooled off discernably in the past week, so I figure this is one of my last chances to do an epic swim this year, so I’ve decided to head up to a lake nearby and do the swim before work tomorrow morning. It’ll take a couple of hours, so I’ll try to get in the water by 6am. Despite my best efforts to drag someone else along, this didn’t work out, so I’ll be on my own. The furthest I’ve ever swum straight before is 5 km, so this’ll be a new personal record if all goes well.

My working week has been intense, with a bunch of heavy deadlines, most of which are met or on their way to being so. Most of my team is also back from their summer vacations, so lots of meetings to discuss projects. One really nice bit of news arrived today in the form of 3.7m SEK of funding (about ½ million USD) from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for a study of the genetic predictors of long-term deteriorations in blood glucose control. The grant follows two recent scientific reports from my team, where we reported genetic determinants of 10 year changes in blood glucose levels (Renström et al, Diabetes, 2011) and blood lipid levels (Varga et al, PLOS Genet., 2014). Those studies reported seminal findings that illustrate that there are DNA sequence variants in the human genome that worsen a persons ability to dispose of glucose and metabolize blood fats, which in turn raise the risk of diabetes and heart disease respectively. The studies were part of a new direction in which we’re heading, which is to map the genetic basis to these long-term metabolic adaptions, an area that is yet to be studied in great depth. The grant from Novo Nordisk will allow us to extend our research by using genetic assessment methods that are much more precise and by studying much large populations, both of which are likely to lead to further exciting discoveries.

We’ve also had other exciting research published recently. Clinical trials designed to prevent diabetes typically focus on weight loss using lifestyle interventions and medication. There are quite wide-ranging responses to these interventions, with some people doing very well and others not. In a recent paper from a study called the Diabetes Prevention Program, which includes about 3,000 adults, we showed that although the total amount of weight lost across two years has the biggest preventive effect on diabetes risk, rapid weight loss (within 6 months of starting the lifestyle program) also helps prevent the disease. We also showed that when people weight cycle (successively gaining and losing weight) they are more likely to develop diabetes (Delahanty et al, Diabetes Care, 2014). In another study published recently, led by Dr. Louise Bennet, focused on Iraqi immigrants to Sweden, showing that insulin action in this population is inhibited compared with native Swedes, which raises the risk of diabetes in this minority group (Bennet et al. Diab Res Clin Prac. 2014).  We also had a paper on the genetic basis of stomach fat, which is a particularly dangerous form of obesity, accepted in the journal Nature. One of my PhD students, Dmitry Shungin, has led this work and when it’s published later this year it’ll likely be a big news story – look out for it!