Diet and women's health

 

• Nutrition for breast cancer survivors

Maintaining a healthy diet is essential for breast cancer survivors. The survivors and their families are highly concerned about improving their health related behaviors and quality of life. However, little is known about the association between dietary factors and breast cancer prognosis, especially among Asian breast cancer survivors.

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We started Korean breast cancer survivors’ recruitment from 2012 and are still in progress of inviting more participants. Collection of information on demographic factors, clinical and reproductive factors, and various lifestyle factors including intakes of foods and nutrients, and supplemental use is ongoing. Biological specimens are being collected from a subset of study participants.

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The purposes of this study are 1) to evaluate the associations between dietary and anthropometric factors and breast cancer prognosis and 2) to provide important evidence to support the significance of promoting healthy diets for breast cancer survivors.

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• Filipino Women's Diet and Health Study (FiLWHEL)

The FiLWHEL study is a cohort study focusing on the health status of the Filipino women immigrants. The primary objectives of the FiLWHEL study are 1) to explore how lifestyle, environment, and genetic factors play a role in the health status of Filipino women; and 2) to promote healthy lifestyle and achieve the optimum level of well-being among Filipino immigrants.  

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The FiLWHEL study was launched on March 2014 and so far a total of 504 Filipino women, married to Korean men, are enrolled. The study collected biospecimen and a comprehensive information on various aspects of a participant's health-related life. 

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We are in progress of recruiting more Filipino women and presenting the results to provide a better and clearer understanding of the health status of this unique community that will play an integral part of the future of Korean society.

 

• Korea Nurses' Health Study

​The Korea Nurses' Health Study is a prospective cohort study of female nurses, with the goal of providing evaluations on associations of occupational, environmental, and lifestyle risk factors with health outcomes of Korean women.

Dietary assessment research

 

• ICT-based dietary monitoring and assessment

Assessment of dietary intake is essential in estimating nutritional status and investigating the role of diet in the maintenance of health and the reduction of disease risk. Information and communication technology (ICT) has a potential to be utilized in dietary assessment as a monitoring tool of nutritional status in public health and epidemiology. We are conducting a randomized intervention trial to examine the effectiveness of ICT-based dietary assessment and monitoring.

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• Estimation of usual intake

​Estimating daily consumption of foods and nutrients has been challenging due to the within-person variability in intake. There is a special interest in methods for estimating the habitual dietary intake distribution and its application to nutritional epidemiologic studies. We study methods for estimating the distribution of usual intake for a population and examining associations between usual dietary intakes and health outcomes. 

Diet-Gene interaction research 

 

Although recent studies found genetic factors related to chronic diseases such as obesity and cancer, it has been suggested that only a small proportion of heritability may be explained by the genetic variants. It has been hypothesized that gene-environment interaction may explain the missing heritability. For example, the association between dietary factors and disease outcomes may vary depending on specific genetic profile. We study whether particular diets accentuate risk of chronic diseases in a population with a certain genetic variation.