SNR #180: Jason Gill, PhD - Role of Ethnicity in Cardio-Metabolic Disease Risk

Sigma Nutrition Radio

Danny Lennon

Sigma, Dietetics, Evidencebased, Nutrition, Training, Health & Fitness, Science, Diet, Fitness, Evidence, Bodybuilding, Health

4.8 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2017

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

Dr Jason Gill is a Reader in Exercise and Metabolic Health in the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He leads an active multi-disciplinary research group investigating the effects of exercise and diet on the prevention and management of vascular and metabolic diseases from the molecular to the whole-body level. Major research interests include: why certain population groups (particularly South Asians) appear to be particularly susceptible to the adverse effects of a `Westernised' lifestyle, and how lifestyle interventions can modulate this excess risk; the interactions between physical activity, energy balance, adiposity and disease risk; and the mechanisms by which exercise regulates lipoprotein metabolism.

He is a past Chair of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) Division of Physical Activity for Health and a member of the development groups for the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines for the prevention and treatment of obesity and for prevention of cardiovascular disease. Jason is Director of the MSc programme in Sport and Exercise Science & Medicine, and also plays an active role in communicating the science of physical activity, diet, obesity and cardio-metabolic risk to the widest possible audience including a number of appearances on TV documentaries and organisation of Understanding of Science events for the general public.

In This Episode We Discuss:

Modifiable factors that influence cardio-metabolic disease risk
Differences in diabetes and cardio-metabolic disease risk between different ethnic groups
Is this increased disease risk a function of ethnicity alone or a mismatch between the environment and that populations evolutionary past?
How different BMI values correspond to different levels of risk between ethnic groups
Differences in cardiorespiratory fitness levels and capacity for fat oxidation potentially contribute to ethnic differences in the cardio-metabolic risk profile
Do we need ethnicity-specific physical activity guidelines?
Research questions that remain unanswered

Transcript

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0:00.0	So if we say that an obesity threshold of a BMI of 30 is what we regard as unacceptable
0:15.0	because risk of conditions such as diabetes are unacceptably high, what we're looking at in South Asians is a much,
0:22.4	much lower BMI of 21 or 22, which is well within the normal range. So what we need to do is when
0:28.0	we're considering what's the optimal level of body weight, it's probably going to be lower in
0:33.4	non-white ethnic groups than white ethnic groups.
0:42.0	So the guidelines for how much physical activity is appropriate and also what level of body weight is appropriate
0:45.0	probably differs between different people. Hello and welcome to another episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio.
1:08.3	Today we're at episode 180 of the podcast and as always I am your host
1:14.1	Danny Lennon and today I'm particularly interested about the topic we're going to be bringing
1:20.2	you because it's something that probably hasn't really been touched on in any of the previous
1:25.4	episodes of this podcast at least not directly or
1:29.1	in depth in the manner that we're going to discuss it today. And we're going to be talking about
1:33.6	the role of ethnicity in risk for cardiometabolic diseases. So diabetes, heart disease, and all the
1:43.1	associated chronic illnesses we see that are related to
1:45.9	heart health and metabolism. And so I'm going to be talking to a researcher from the University of
1:50.9	Glasgow, Dr. Jason Gill, who has done a lot of research in this area comparing different ethnic
1:57.6	groups and how different markers for, say, BMI or physical activity can
2:04.4	confer different disease risks to different groups, and therefore maybe we need to re-evaluate
2:09.5	what recommendations we give. So I think this is a particularly important discussion,
2:14.7	not only from a public health message perspective, but for any of you listening
2:19.3	who are in fact dietitians or nutritionists or coaches or personal trainers who are working
2:25.7	with someone on their nutrition or on their exercise, just having an awareness of this stuff that
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