Assessing sustainable diets in relation to cardiometabolic outcomes

Sustainable diets that include little or no animal-sourced foods are increasingly recommended for their potential benefits to both human health and the environment. While there is consistent evidence supporting the reduced environmental impact of such dietary patterns, evidence for their long-term effects on health remains limited and mixed, including for cardiometabolic outcomes and mortality. The Planetary Health Diet, developed by the EAT-Lancet Commission, is one such diet that is characterised by reduced animal product consumption and intended to align with current evidence on diet and sustainability. Some studies have reported that greater adherence to this dietary pattern is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality; others have found no clear associations. These discrepancies may reflect variation in how adherence to sustainable diets were scored across studies, or differences in dietary behaviours between study populations.  

The overall aim of this DPhil project is to conduct a comprehensive investigation of sustainable diets in relation to cardio-metabolic outcomes using data from EPIC-Oxford, EPIC-Europe and UK Biobank, and to understand the possible aetiology of any differences in health outcomes. Specifically, the work will involve working with health records though hospital linkage, death registries, and potentially investigating the healthcare costs and/or environmental impacts associated with sustainable diets. It could also involve examining relevant biomarkers (traditional clinical biomarkers and novel technologies such as proteomics) using available data from these cohorts. The work may also involve genetic approaches (e.g. Mendelian randomisation) to assess the causal relevance of selected biomarkers and outcomes of interest.