Cardiometabolic disease has been a leading cause of death in the US for decades. Diet is one major determinant of an individual’s metabolic response. Other factors such as genetic variants, epigenetic regulations, and the gut microbiome are also involved in metabolic regulation. These many factors may affect, independently or synergistically, the development and progression of cardiometabolic disease; therefore, integrating multidimensional approaches to study cardiometabolic disease is crucial. Nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) disease has dramatically increased in parallel with rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. NAFLD has been posited as the liver’s manifestation of metabolic syndrome, a clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors and is projected to be the primary indication for liver transplantation in the US by 2025. By integrating dietary intake, high resolution image data of the liver, and omics data such as genetic and epigenetic data, emerging observational studies are beginning to provide novel evidence of exposures linked to the development of NAFLD.
Jiantao Ma received his Ph.D. degree in the Nutrition Epidemiology Program from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. He is currently a Research Fellow in the Framingham Heart Study and the Population Sciences Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). His research interest is to integrate complex data of genetic and genomic measurements with traditional nutritional and epidemiological studies to investigate etiology for cardiometabolic diseases. He is funded by the NHLBI’s Career Transition Award (K22) to study diet, biomarkers, and metabolic pathways related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.