| The European Commission has awarded almost £9 million to help the five-year project, with £1 million of this money going directly to Dundee University.
The project is in response to the urgent problem of obesity, which has increased three-fold in the UK in the last 20 years.
It is predicted to be followed by a large increase in Type 2 Diabetes, which cases many chronic and debilitating health problems.
Regular exercise and a balanced diet have long been thought of as the best path to avoid these problems, but researchers are now beginning to understand how exercise achieves this.
Professor Grahame Hardie of the university’s School of Life Sciences, who is co-ordinating the project said, “The link between exercise and prevention of Type 2 Diabetes is very convincing but is currently only a correlation, rather like the original evidence that smoking causes lung cancer.
“Once it is known exactly how exercise prevents the disease, we will be able to give people more rational advice about exercise and health, and also put more pressure on European governments to adopt policies that make it easier for people to increase their level of exercise.
“It may also be feasible to develop a drug that mimics the effects of exercise for those people who are unable to undertake it themselves.
“This is some way in the future. It will take several years to develop a drug and test its safety.”
The project will range all the way from basic studies of the structure of key proteins to studies of supervised exercise programmes in large groups of volunteers at risk of developing disease, who will be monitored over the course of the project to assess the outcomes.
Professor Hardie is head of the division of Molecular Physiology in the School of Life Sciences. He will be working with colleagues from 26 laboratories across 13 European countries, and with corporate partners including Astra Zeneca and Unilever. |
