Christine Gaskell

Identifying lifestyle factors associated to co-morbidity of obesity and psychiatric disorders, a pilot study

Christine Gaskell

Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar

cjh2006@qatar-med.conrnell.edu

Padmakumari Sarada

Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar

Eiman Aleem

London South Bank University

Ghizlane Bendriss

Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar

There is a bi-directional link between psychiatric disorders and obesity. It is predicted that by 2025 more than one billion people will be affected by obesity alongside its many associated diseases, with obesity rates having tripled in the past few decades. While this issue is recognized as a global health concern, the lifestyle factors contributing to obesity vary across different countries and geographical regions and are therefore influenced by varying factors. Previous research conducted on obesity has focused on Western populations; this is the first study that investigates lifestyle factors relating to obesity and mental health in Qatar, a country that has undergone many changes in a short period over the last 30 years. In this pilot study, we compare the lifestyles of Qatari residents with those of UK residents. Several statistical tests were employed to test variables such as the types of food consumed, self-reported stress, exercise frequency and duration, alcohol and tobacco consumption, and sleep duration, were explored with the results suggesting that different lifestyle factors are contributing to the same health condition, in different countries. We found that both groups reported similar sleep durations (p = 0.800), but that perception of sleep (p = 0.011), consumption of alcohol (p = 0.001), consumption of takeaway food (p = 0.007), and physical activity significantly varied between the groups (p = 0.0001). The study examined the predictors of comorbidity in Qatar as well as UK populations using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The findings highlight the need for further investigation to better understand the relationship between specific lifestyle factors and health and disease in different countries.

BIOGRAPHIES

Christine Gaskell, Senior Teaching Specialist of Human Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar. BSc Human Biology, MSc Sport, Health, and Exercise Science and currently pursuing a PhD in Human Sciences. Areas of interest include health, sport, anatomy and lifestyle.

Ghizlane Bendriss is a neuroscientist with a multidisciplinary approach integrating neurobiology, microbiome research, sensory cognition, and community health. She holds a PhD in Neurophysiology and Neurobiology and a Master's in Cognitive Neuroscience. She holds a diploma in lifestyle medicine from the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, where she teaches neurosciences and biology in the premedical division and leads numerous research projects and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities around the gut-brain axis, including the role of the gut microbiome in health and diseases.

Padma Sarada is a Teaching Specialist in Math and Statistics at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. She holds an MSc in Statistics, an MSc in Mathematics, and a BSc in Education from Kerala University, India. Ph.D. in Education at Richard W Riley College of Education & Leadership, U.S.A.

Eiman Aleem, professor at London South Bank University. Received her PhD in Molecular Biology from Heidelberg University and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (DKFZ), Germany in 2001. She worked with Professor P. Bannasch on tyrosine kinase signaling in hepatocarcinogenesis. Dr. Aleem joined the lab of Dr. Philipp Kaldis in 2002 as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, USA, to study the in vivo functions of cyclin-dependent kinases using knockout mouse models. Dr. Aleem received the Egyptian State Prize In Biological Sciences for young investigators in 2006 and the NIH Fellows Award for excellence in biomedical research for 2004, 2005 and 2006.