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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 23|pp 23889—23899

Cohort profile: the Diet and Healthy Aging (DaHA) study in Singapore

Rongjun Yu1, Ye Sun2, Kaisy Xinhong Ye2, Qiushi Feng3, Su Lin Lim4, Rathi Mahendran2,5,6, Irwin Kee-Mun Cheah7, Roger Sik Yin Foo8, Ru Yuan Chua2, Xinyi Gwee2, Marie Loh9,10, Rani Sarmugam11, Wei Wei Thwe Khine12, Yin Xia Chao13,14, Anis Larbi12,15, Yuan Kun Lee12, Alan Prem Kumar16,17, Brian K. Kennedy7,18,19,20, Ee Heok Kua2, Lei Feng2,20
  • 1Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 2Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 3Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 4Department of Dietetics, National University Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
  • 5Department of Psychological Medicine, National University Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
  • 6Academic Development Department, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
  • 7Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 8Cardiovascular Research Institute, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 9Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
  • 10Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 11Health Promotion Board, Singapore, Singapore
  • 12Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 13Department of Neurology, National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore, Singapore
  • 14Department of Medical Education, Research and Evaluation (MERE), Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
  • 15Singapore Immunology Network, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore
  • 16Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 17Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 18Department of Physiology, National University Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 19Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore
  • 20Centre for Healthy Longevity, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore
* Equal contribution
Received: March 18, 2020Accepted: August 29, 2020Published: November 18, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Yu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

How diet is related with cognition and health has not been systematically examined in Asians whose eating habits are very different from their counterparts in the West and the biological mechanisms underlying such links are not well known yet. The diet and healthy aging (DaHA) study is a community-based longitudinal study conducted to examine the role of diet and nutrition in promoting cognitive, emotional, and physical health among community-living elderly Singaporeans. The first wave of DaHA, conducted from 2011 to 2017, provided detailed information on diet and baseline cognitive function and health from 1010 community-living elderly in Singapore. Biomarkers of oxidative stress, systemic inflammation, and genetic information were collected. The ongoing second wave of DaHA is conducted from 2017 to 2020, which provides follow- up assessments using established cognitive tests and clinical tools. This well-characterized cohort, with its archived biological samples and high-quality data on diet and lifestyle factors will allow researchers to explore the relationships among diet, nutrition, genes, cognition, mental and physical health in an extremely cost-effective manner. Translations of the research findings into clinical and public health practices will potentially help to promote cognitive health at the population level and reduce healthcare costs related to cognitive impairment.