Lay summary
New Zealand has one of the highest incidence rates of colorectal cancer worldwide. While there are many hypotheses about the effects of diet on the risk of developing colorectal cancer, understanding of the role of diet in the etiology of colorectal cancer is far from complete.
For the Girdlers' Fellowship, I propose a research programme on diet and colorectal cancer in UK Biobank, a prospective cohort of 500,000 British people aged 40-69 years. Cox regression will be used to estimate the relative risk of colorectal cancer in UK Biobank in relation to categories of nutritional factors, including meat, fat, calcium, dairy products, vitamin D, fruit, vegetables, and fibre.
Thus the proposed research furthers my career objective to conduct research that provides strong experimental evidence that can be used to develop and support public health initiatives to reduce the population burden of non-communicable diseases.
This grant was awarded to University of Otago but was later transfered to The University of Auckland.