Colombo Twin and Singleton Study -3

The Colombo Twin and Singleton Study 3 (COTASS-3) is funded by the Medical Research Council, UK under a Nutrition-based training grant, and is conducted by the Institute for Research and Development (IRD), in collaboration with King’s College London. The training plan aims to enhance skills and capacity for nutrition-related research in Sri Lanka, considering the urgency to address the rising burden of Non-Communicable Diseases like Diabetes, Cardiovascular diseases, and obesity in the Sri Lankan populations. The project is led by Prof Fruhling Rijsdijk (PI) and Dr Helena Zavos (Co-PI) from Kings College London, who are international experts in Behaviour Genetics and twin data analyses. Prof Athula Sumathipala (Co-PI) Director of the IRD, Sri Lanka and Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the Keele University, UK leads the overall study in Sri Lanka. Prof. Ranil Jayawardena (Co-PI) of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka is leading the nutrition component of the study. Rest of the team members include Dr Steven Blackburn Keele University UK, Dr Ruvini Liyanage Head of the Nutritional Biochemistry Research Group at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS), Mrs Manouri Wimalasekera, Dr. Kaushalya Jayaweera (IRD) and Prof. Duminda Guruge, Department of Health Promotion, Rajarata University, Sri Lanka. The project has 5 objectives:

1. Developing a Sri Lankan specific food composition database to incorporate diverse food preferences and improve dietary advice and recommendations.
2. Developing skills in Macro and Micro Element Analysis in Food and Biological samples to validate dietary intake measures.
3. Providing training in statistical genetics, focusing on the novel Children-of-Twin method, to enable advanced statistical techniques and utilize the unique Colombo Twin and Singleton Study (CoTASS) data.
4. Establishing a core of researchers focusing on Patients and People Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) to strengthen future research proposals, development, delivery, and outcomes.
5. Establishing new collaborations with research institutions in Sri Lanka, including the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS) and the Department of Health Promotion, Rajarata University, to foster multidisciplinary research and community-based health promotion approaches.

The project objectives will be met using three training streams, 1) Training in Macro and Micro Element Analysis in Food and Biological samples 2) Specialist Training in Structural Equation Model Fitting (SEM) of Twin Data, and 3) Training in Patients and people Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in Nutrition Research, and will use data from a pilot study. A pilot study was conducted with a sub-sample of 76 female twin pairs from the longitudinal COTASS cohort, and their adult offspring. The total sample consisted of 304 individuals. This pilot aimed to explore the causal mechanisms behind intergenerational transmission of nutritional choices and their association with metabolic risk indicators. Both questionnaire data and bio specimens (Blood and Urine) were collected from the participants. Data collection for the study has been completed. The results of the study will help investigate the genetic and environmental components of intergenerational transmission of risk for a) nutritional intake, b) eating behaviours; psychological well-being and c) physical health using statistical model-fitting (Children-of-Twin) analyses, and compare food frequency questionnaire and 24-hour dietary recall of nutritional intake with serum and urinary markers for validation of subjective measures of dietary intake and for establishing objective measures of dietary intake