UniSA uses cookies to remember your preferences, analyse traffic, track usage patterns, and personalise content. In some instances, UniSA shares personal information collected by cookies with UniSA's third party service providers and Adelaide University (as UniSA's future successor). See our privacy notification for further details. To adjust your cookie settings, click 'More information'. By clicking 'Accept and continue', you consent to our use of cookies.

UniSA recommends the use of all cookies to provide you with the optimal experience while visiting our website. Choose below to accept the recommended settings or continue to adjust your individual preferences.

Adjust your settings

Essential cookies
Preserves the visitor’s session state across multiple page requests. These cookies are required for basic site functionality and are therefore always enabled.
Analytical cookies
Used to send data through services such as Google Analytics and our advertising platform about a user's device and behaviour. Tracks the user across devices and marketing channels.
Marketing cookies and Advertising based pixels
Track digital activity from ads, optimise ads and remarket to users to customise the website's user experience.

You can opt out of the collection and use of your information for ad targeting. Information for exercising that choice is available at www.aboutads.info/choices and www.youronlinechoices.eu.
Enquiry management cookies
Capture session data for users submitting an enquiry through to our CRM to aid identification of the enquiry source and tailor communications.

Diet and nutrition play a key influence on our health. We also know that nutrition and other influences from our lifestyles and environment act in combination with our genetic make-up to affect health and disease risk. Due to recent advances in gene discovery and big data methodologies, it is now possible to examine the joint effects of genes and environment. Importantly, this will help us to establish whether making changes where we can (e.g. diet, lifestyle) can ameliorate adverse influences caused by susceptibility genes, which we cannot alter.

The Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology group, headed by ACPreH Director Elina Hyppönen, uses tools from observational and genetic epidemiology to investigate the role of nutrition, lifestyles and other modifiable influences on public health. We seek to understand gene-environment interactions, and use genetic markers in causal modelling often looking across the full spectrum of human diseases.

Work in this research area includes projects examining intergenerational and genetic influences on growth and disease risk, as well as the short and long-term health effects of Vitamin D, coffee consumption, obesity and other lifestyle factors. Much of the work is done using large-scale population data collections, often in the context of large-scale international collaborations. 

Researchers

 

Current research projects