“Obesity, C-peptide and Lethal Prostate Cancer”
Project Co-Leaders
Bettina Drake, PhD, MPH, associate professor, Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine
Jing Ma, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, Harvard School of Medicine
Collaborator
Adam S. Kibel, MD, professor of surgery, Harvard Medical School; chief of urology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and chief of urology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Project Summary
Our goal is to perform detailed evaluations of the relationship between obesity (BMI and/or central adiposity) and lethal prostate cancer. We will use harmonized data from the two large NCI Cohort Consortium “Body Mass Index (BMI) and All Cause Mortality Pooling Project” and “Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium (BPC3)” to evaluate the association between overall obesity, abdominal obesity and smoking status in predicting risk of lethal prostate cancer (PC). This will be the largest prospective analysis of obesity yet and will establish whether obesity is related to lethal PC. In addition, this study will determine the dose-response relationship, the timing of exposure, and the role of central adiposity. Lastly, we will also assess whether the association is confounded or modified by smoking, physical activity, diabetes or race. In collaboration with TREC@WUSTL and the clinical PC cohort, we will also evaluate the associations of BMI and plasma C-peptide levels (a marker of insulin production) with PSA recurrence, progression to metastasis, and overall mortality.
“Integrating Measures of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, Sleep, and the Built Environment”
Project Leader
Simon Marshall, PhD, associate professor, Department of Family and Preventative Medicine, University of California San Diego
Collaborators
WUSTL TREC: Ross Brownson, PhD, professor, Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery
Harvard TREC: Francine Laden, ScD, MS, associate professor of environmental epidemiology
UPenn TREC: Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, professor of epidemiology
Project Summary
This study will add state-of-the-science accelerometers and Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to a subsample of participants at the WUSTL, Harvard and UPenn TREC sites, with the UCSD TREC site providing existing data and serving as the data reading, processing and analysis center. GPS data will be time-matched to the accelerometer data to determine locations of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB). GIS-based built environment variables (e.g. street connectivity) will be developed for buffers within and outside the neighborhood and be used to add context to, and test associations with, patterns of physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep.
Project Aims
The primary aim of this study is to:
- Evaluate the convergent validity of objective and self-reported data on PA, SB, and sleep collected from multiple samples living in different geographic regions of the U.S.
Secondary aims of this study are to:
- Examine the feasibility and validity of a wrist mounted accelerometer to contemporaneously measure PA, SB, and sleep;
- Examine the feasibility of deploying and using GPS in an ethnically diverse adult cohort to develop GIS-matched measures of the built environment relevant to PA, SB, and sleep; and
- Describe the interdependent and independent patterns (e.g. volume, type) of objectively measured PA, SB, and sleep among individuals with different cancer status (survivor vs. healthy), and investigate whether these patterns are related to characteristics of the built environment (e.g. neighborhood walkability) and time spent in different locations (e.g. in neighborhood vs. out of neighborhood).