Story - Parkinson - Long-term study on African diaspora
Loyola researchers travel through the pictured market, similar to those throughout the region, on the way to Nkwantakese, the village where they work. PHOTO BY DALE SCHOELLER
Long-term study on African diaspora continues to challenge public health beliefs
Decades-long study from Loyola University Chicago helps us understand what role genes, social factors and behaviors play in our health
Growing up in Arkansas during the Jim Crow era, Richard Cooper, professor emeritus at Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health, witnessed the high cost of racism first-hand. Seeing the injustice drove him to put racial inequity at the center of his work as a medical researcher.
His interest in both cardiology and inequity led him to establish a first-of-its-kind research project focused on hypertension among people with roots in west Africa. Starting in the 1990s, Cooper and scientists around the world signed up 20,000 individuals, who lived in west Africa or had descendants who did and currently lived in the Caribbean or Chicago.
The cross-cultural longitudinal study—supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health found that rates of hypertension were higher in the United States than in west Africa. The findings dismantled the prevailing narrative of the time—that high rates of hypertension in the Black community were genetic—and demonstrated social conditions increase the risk of the disease.
More than three decades after the first study of this population, Loyola students and professors are still taking a similar approach to studying public health. A new cohort of study participants, who like the first group live in or descend from west, east, or southern Africa, joined in 2010, through the Modeling the Epidemiologic Transition Study (METS). The methodology underscores the Parkinson School’s commitment to taking a holistic approach to health. Students consider not just the U.S. health care system, but social factors that affect health as well.
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Umbrellas in the Central Market in Kumasi. PHOTO BY AMY LUKE
Challenging what is known
“People often get locked into studying a single cell or a single molecule and spend their whole life on it. But epidemiology is exciting because you're dealing with humans in an ever-changing scientific climate,” said Amy Luke, the department chair of public health sciences and the original principal investigator of the study exploring the relationship between weight change and physical activity in African ancestry populations.
By examining genetic factors in individuals with African ancestry who live in continental Africa and those in the diaspora, Loyola Chicago researchers are taking steps toward understanding what role genes play in health, compared to environmental factors. The work of several Loyola researchers has touched on this keystone question.
For example, health sciences professor Bamidele Tayo used the data as part of international collaborative effort on hypertension to investigate the genetic variants across the human genome that, in addition to environmental factors, play significant role in hypertension.
This research, in turn, led other Loyola scientists to assess the association between physical activity levels, relative weight and how weight gain affects diabetes and heart disease. Luke, for example, first found physical activity did not predict weight change in the early 2000’s, after assessing Black women in Chicago and women in Nigeria.
“These results challenged our beliefs that physical activity was the panacea for the obesity epidemic, and laid the foundation for the METS study.” Amy Luke, department chair of public health sciences
Lara Dugas, an associate professor of public health sciences, also contributed to that body of work, by extending the original METS cohort for a further 10 years, focusing on the role of the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic disease risk.
"There has been a lot of effort spent suggesting that the reason that the obesity prevalence has increased so significantly, and in particular in developed countries such as the U.S., is because we have become much less active, as opposed to more emphasis on the obesogenic food environment,” Dugas said at the time of the study. “In our study, even young adults who meet the physical activity guidelines were as likely to gain weight as those who did not, suggesting that both sides of the energy balance spectrum must be considered.”
On top of the research findings, the university’s NIH-funded work has included more than a decade of training for other biomedical researchers from teaching hospitals in west Africa to study stroke and cardiovascular disease – thus expanding the body of data and research available on these populations.
Today, Parkinson’s dean, Elaine Morrato, reflects on the legacy of the study Cooper began almost 30 years ago and that endures at Loyola today through Luke, Tayo, and Dugas.
“Dr. Cooper’s groundbreaking efforts to conduct a longitudinal epidemiological study with African ancestry populations continues to provide diverse data samples that are invaluable in our field of study – and challenge our assumptions and paradigms,” Morrato said. “Rigorous research sustained over a thirty-year period is remarkable. It’s a testament to our research team’s commitment to honoring long-standing relationships in the community. Their results not only influence efforts to reduce health disparities globally, but ultimately inform public health policies, practice, and decision-making.”
Challenging what is known
“People often get locked into studying a single cell or a single molecule and spend their whole life on it. But epidemiology is exciting because you're dealing with humans in an ever-changing scientific climate,” said Amy Luke, the department chair of public health sciences and the original principal investigator of the study exploring the relationship between weight change and physical activity in African ancestry populations.
By examining genetic factors in individuals with African ancestry who live in continental Africa and those in the diaspora, Loyola Chicago researchers are taking steps toward understanding what role genes play in health, compared to environmental factors. The work of several Loyola researchers has touched on this keystone question.
For example, health sciences professor Bamidele Tayo used the data as part of international collaborative effort on hypertension to investigate the genetic variants across the human genome that, in addition to environmental factors, play significant role in hypertension.
This research, in turn, led other Loyola scientists to assess the association between physical activity levels, relative weight and how weight gain affects diabetes and heart disease. Luke, for example, first found physical activity did not predict weight change in the early 2000’s, after assessing Black women in Chicago and women in Nigeria.
“These results challenged our beliefs that physical activity was the panacea for the obesity epidemic, and laid the foundation for the METS study.” Amy Luke, department chair of public health sciences
Lara Dugas, an associate professor of public health sciences, also contributed to that body of work, by extending the original METS cohort for a further 10 years, focusing on the role of the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic disease risk.
"There has been a lot of effort spent suggesting that the reason that the obesity prevalence has increased so significantly, and in particular in developed countries such as the U.S., is because we have become much less active, as opposed to more emphasis on the obesogenic food environment,” Dugas said at the time of the study. “In our study, even young adults who meet the physical activity guidelines were as likely to gain weight as those who did not, suggesting that both sides of the energy balance spectrum must be considered.”
On top of the research findings, the university’s NIH-funded work has included more than a decade of training for other biomedical researchers from teaching hospitals in west Africa to study stroke and cardiovascular disease – thus expanding the body of data and research available on these populations.
Today, Parkinson’s dean, Elaine Morrato, reflects on the legacy of the study Cooper began almost 30 years ago and that endures at Loyola today through Luke, Tayo, and Dugas.
“Dr. Cooper’s groundbreaking efforts to conduct a longitudinal epidemiological study with African ancestry populations continues to provide diverse data samples that are invaluable in our field of study – and challenge our assumptions and paradigms,” Morrato said. “Rigorous research sustained over a thirty-year period is remarkable. It’s a testament to our research team’s commitment to honoring long-standing relationships in the community. Their results not only influence efforts to reduce health disparities globally, but ultimately inform public health policies, practice, and decision-making.”