Nov 20, 2015

Penny Gordon-Larsen recently received funding to study if there is a link between Western diets and cardiometabolic risk among Chinese people living in a rural area that is undergoing urbanization. She will use the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), a 25-year study of 15,000 people who are interviewed at regular intervals about their health and their lives.

The study “Transition to a Western diet and cardiometabolic risk: Biomarkers derived from the microbiome” will evaluate changes in people’s diets while the urbanization process is underway. Gordon-Larsen will follow participants from a rural area and an urban area over a two-year period to determine if gut bacteria changes after transitioning to a more Western diet (high in meat, sugar, fat and refined grains).

Gordon-Larsen is a Carolina Population Center Fellow and is a professor of nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill. The study is funded by the National Institutes of Health and is administered by UNC’s Carolina Population Center.

Gordon-Larsen is currently researching the Emergence of Cardiometabolic Risk across the Lifecycle in China and Environmental Change and Inflammation: Age, Cohort and Household Effects in China led by Fellow Amanda Thompson, which also use CHNS data and are funded by NIH.

Some of Gordon-Larsen’s recently published articles using the China Health and Nutrition Survey are listed here:

Attard, Samantha M., Amy H. Herring, Bing Zhang, Shufa Du, Barry M. Popkin, and Penny Gordon-Larsen. 2015. Associations between Age, Cohort, and Urbanization with SBP and DBP in China: A Population-Based Study across 18 Years. Journal of Hypertension. 33 (5):948-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/hjh.0000000000000522 PMCID: PMC4412782.

Paynter, Lauren, Elizabeth Koehler, Annie Green Howard, Amy H. Herring, and Penny Gordon-Larsen. 2015. Characterizing Long-Term Patterns of Weight Change in China Using Latent Class Trajectory Modeling. PLOS ONE. 10 (2):e0116190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116190 PMCID: PMC4336139.

Stern, Dalia, Lindsey P. Smith, Bing Zhang, Penny Gordon-Larsen, and Barry M. Popkin. 2014. Changes in Waist Circumference Relative to Body Mass Index in Chinese Adults, 1993-2009. International Journal of Obesity. 38 (12):1503-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2014.74 PMCID: PMC4229489.

Thompson, Amanda L., Linda S. Adair, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Bing Zhang, and Barry M. Popkin. 2015. Environmental, Dietary, and Behavioral Factors Distinguish Chinese Adults with High Waist-to-Height Ratio with and without Inflammation. Journal of Nutrition. 145 (6):1335-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.3945/jn.114.206102 PMCID: PMC4442114.

The Gillings School of Global Public Health posted this story about Gordon-Larsen’s new study.