About
Despite extensive measures aimed at preventing type 2 diabetes, public health strategies have not managed to slow the epidemic down. Type 2 diabetes is a complex disease, and we still do not fully understand all underlying mechanisms that trigger diabetes in individual patients. Many risk factors have been shown to contribute to type 2 diabetes, including genetic factors as well as a variety of environmental factors such as excess body weight, physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol consumption.
In this project, we aim to determine the relative importance of a variety of risk factors for type 2 diabetes. We will examine a large number of genetic and lifestyle factors, for example body weight, physical activity, and eating habits, and then compare their importance for the development of diabetes. UK biobank offers great possibility to perform this investigation due to the extensive data that has been collected on a large number of participants. However, traditional statistical methods have limitations that makes them non-optimal for this type of project and we therefore plan to use another technique called machine learning, that will allow us to utilise as much of the data as possible in our calculations. Our hope is that the results from this study will build on to the understanding about what is really important in the development of the disease. In extension, this knowledge might aid public health systems in slowing down the epidemic of type 2 diabetes since preventive actions can be directed where they will make the biggest difference. We expect this project to take about 6 months.