Summary
Heidi Lai is a Research Fellow at Imperial College London training as a General Adviser in Research Design Service (RDS) London since November 2021, where her role focuses on offering general and methodological support to clients with their grant applications to NIHR, MRC, and various charities. Between 2019-2021, she trained in applying multilevel growth curve models, and have mapped trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factors and their associations with dementia among diabetes patients using data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. She is also an active member of the Fatty Acids and Outcomes Research Consortium (FORCE) and is leading projects in exploring associations between fatty acid biomarkers and various health outcomes.
She received postdoctoral training in Nutritional Epidemiology under the mentorship of Dean Dariush Mozaffarian at Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy (USA), specialising in longitudinal survival analyses assessing associations between serial fatty acid biomarkers, healthy ageing, and cardiometabolic diseases in 2016-2019. She pursued these topics in multiple settings, and her efforts have led to high-impact first-author publications such as in The BMJ. She is also the recipient of the “Best Scientific Paper 2015” award from the Alpro Foundation while completing her interdisciplinary PhD in Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds (UK).
Heidi’s academic interests includes exploring traditional and novel analytical methods, engaging in research related to diet, healthy ageing, and cardiometabolic disease to support future policy-making decisions.
Publications
Journals
Lai HTM, Chang K, Sharabiani MTA, et al., 2023, Twenty-year trajectories of cardio-metabolic factors among people with type 2 diabetes by dementia status in England: a retrospective cohort study, European Journal of Epidemiology, Vol:38, ISSN:0393-2990, Pages:733-744
de Oliveira Otto MC, Wu JHY, Thacker EL, et al., 2023, Circulating Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids, Cognitive Decline, and Dementia in Older Adults., J Alzheimers Dis, Vol:95, Pages:965-979
Wang M, Wang Z, Lee Y, et al., 2022, Dietary Meat, Trimethylamine N-Oxide-Related Metabolites, and Incident Cardiovascular Disease Among Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study, Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Vol:42, ISSN:1079-5642, Pages:E273-E288
Conference
Vamos EP, Lai H, Sharabiani M, et al., 2022, Cardio-metabolic factors and risk of dementia in people with type 2 diabetes in England: a large retrospective cohort study, DUK, SPRINGER, Pages:S402-S403, ISSN:0012-186X
Lai H, Sharma A, Chang K, et al., 2022, COMPARISON OF SEX-SPECIFIC HISTORICAL CARDIOMETABOLIC TRAJECTORIES IN T2D PATIENTS BY DEMENTIA STATUS IN ENGLAND, DUK, BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP, Pages:A1-A2, ISSN:0143-005X