Clinical Research Directory

GENESIS: Genotype Guided - Natriuretic Peptides - Cardiometabolic Health Study

Natriuretic Peptides (NP) are hormones produced by the heart, and they have a wide range of favorable metabolic benefits. Lower levels of these hormones are associated with an increased likelihood of the development of diabetes and poor cardiometabolic health. Obese and Black individuals have \~30% lower levels of NP and are at a greater risk of developing cardiovascular (CV) events as compared to lean and White counterparts. Some people have common genetic variations that cause them to have \~20% lower NP levels. Similar to other low NP populations, these individuals with low NP genotype (i.e., carrying a common genetic variation called rs5068) are at a greater risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases. By understanding the NP response following the exercise challenge and the glucose challenge in individuals with genetically lower NP levels will help us understand how to improve cardiometabolic health in them.

Impact of Circadian Exercise on Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease in Postmenopausal Women

Type of Study: Clinical Trial Goal: The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate how performing exercise at different times of day (morning vs. evening) affects liver fat, cardiometabolic health, and gut microbiota in postmenopausal women. Participant Population/Health Conditions: The study will involve 63 sedentary postmenopausal women (aged 45-75) diagnosed with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. Main Questions: The main questions this study aims to answer are: * Does morning exercise reduce hepatic fat more effectively than evening exercise? * How does time-of-day-specific exercise influence cardiometabolic markers? * Do changes in gut microbiota contribute to the metabolic effects of exercise timing? Participants Will: Be randomized into one of three groups: morning exercise, evening exercise, or a usual-care control group. Follow the assigned regimen for 12 weeks. The exercise groups will perform supervised aerobic and resistance training three times per week. Provide blood, stool, and imaging data before and after the intervention to determine the effects of the intervention. Comparison Group: Researchers will compare the effects of morning vs. evening exercise (and usual care) on hepatic fat reduction and cardiometabolic improvement, as well as changes in gut microbiota.

Genetic Architecture of Natriuretic Peptides and Blood Pressure Response

Natriuretic peptides (NPs) are hormones produced by the heart and play an important role in maintaining cardiovascular health and have favorable metabolic benefits. Low NP levels are associated with an increased likelihood of the development of cardiometabolic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. NP levels are known to be highly heritable, with up to half of the differences in NP levels being explained by genetics. The investigators aim to describe the genetic architecture of NPs by examining the genetic variants associated with NPs, and generate and validate a polygenic score (PGS) for NPs. The investigators will use this NP PGS to examine the association of genetically determined NP levels with cardiometabolic and cardiovascular outcomes. The investigators will conduct a genotype-guided physiological clinical trial that aims to assess the genetic factors affecting NP levels and their impact on blood pressure and NP response to saline infusion, high-salt diet, and low-salt diet. These findings will help support personal medicine approaches to lower the increasing burden of hypertension in the United States.

NT-ProBNP-based Heart Failure Screening and Prevention Trial in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: STRONG-DM Study

A pragmatic, randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effect of a heart failure (HF) risk assessment and prevention strategy incorporating HF clinical risk scores (WATCH-DM) with cardiac biomarker (NT-proBNP) paired with a clinical decision support tool to implement an intensive prevention strategy among patients with high risk focused on implementation of evidence-based HF preventive therapies.

Sustainable Diets and Cardiometabolic Health

This study aims to investigate the effects of sustainable diets on traditional and novel cardiometabolic risk factors. The primary objective is: • To test the effects of a sustainable diet on traditional cardiometabolic risk factors, specifically, a metabolic health score. The secondary objectives are: * To test the effects of sustainable diets on blood lipids, inflammatory markers, glucose markers, and anthropometric and body composition markers. * To test the effect of sustainable diets on circulating metabolomic profiles. * To test the effects of sustainable diets on circulating proteomic profiles. Participants will receive dietary interventions of a sustainable health diet, namely the PHD diet (Planetary Health Diet), an ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet, or a habitual diet following general recommendations for a healthy diet without advice on consumption of animal products. The three-arm parallel RCT will involve adults (45-70 years old) at cardiovascular risk. The primary hypothesis is that targeted interventions to adopt sustainable diets will have beneficial effects on cardiometabolic biomarkers, metabolomic, and proteomic profiles, compared to the habitual diet in individuals at cardiovascular risk.

Impact of Earplugs on Mechanisms of Noise-Related Cardiovascular Disease

Noise from cars, planes, and trains affects all people and has been associated with heart disease. Almost 30% of Americans are exposed to harmful levels of noise and noise accounts for the loss of more than one million healthy life years per year in Europe. Noise causes stress and may be most dangerous when it happens at night. The mechanisms linking noise to heart disease involve changes in the brain and the "fight or flight" response. These changes lead to inflammation and blood vessel disease. However, there are few laws that restrict noise and it is not addressed in medical care. Further, as cities and industries grow, noise continues to increase. Moreover, noise often occurs in areas that are also exposed to other stressors like high air pollution and low income. Yet, there is little research on noise, and it is not known if lowering noise exposure helps heart health. The investigators will use imaging to test if earplugs that block noise improve stress symptoms and changes in the the brain, blood vessels, and stress pathways that lead to disease. The investigators expect that people who use earplugs will have lower measures of stress and heart disease at follow-up. The study will include 26 people with heart disease risk with high noise exposure or who are annoyed by noise. At the first visit, subjects will have imaging of the brain and blood vessels and will have assessments of stress, inflammation, and the "fight or flight" response. They will be assigned to use earplugs or not after the first visit. After 6 months, imaging and other testing will be repeated. It will help to understand how noise impacts the body and whether the effects can be changed. It may also identify important treatments to prevent heart disease in people exposed to noise. By testing if the adverse effects of noise can be lowered with earplugs, this project supports the AHA's mission to be a force for a world of longer and healthier lives.

Sarcopenia, Metabolic Diseases, and Integrated Aging Longitudinal Evaluation (SMILE)

This study aims to establish an ambispective cohort platform centered on the pathological axis of "sarcopenia-metabolic disorders-aging progression", integrating multimodal data including demographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, clinical phenotypes, laboratory tests, medical imaging, and biospecimens. Namely 'Sarcopenia, Metabolic Diseases, and Integrated Aging Longitudinal Evaluation (SMILE)'.

Health Chat for Empowerment-based Lifestyle Planning for Cardiometabolic Multimorbidity

The goal of this study is to: 1. assess the feasibility of the health chat for empowerment-based lifestyle planning for cardiometabolic multimorbidity (HcELP\_CMM); 2. examine the immediate effects of the HcELP\_CMM program on lifestyle behaviors, cardiometabolic indicators, symptom burden, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), psychological well-being, and physical function; 3. examine the long-term effects of the HcELP\_CMM program on lifestyle behaviors, cardiometabolic indicators, symptom burden, HRQoL, psychological well-being, and physical function in patients with CMM. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. If the HcELP\_CMM program is feasible? 2. If the HcELP\_CMM program has the potential to improve the lifestyle behaviors, cardiometabolic indicators, symptom burden, HRQoL, psychological well-being, and physical function in patients with CMM compared to the usual care group in the short-term？ 3. If the HcELP\_CMM program has the potential to improve the lifestyle behaviors, cardiometabolic indicators, symptom burden, HRQoL, psychological well-being, and physical function in patients with CMM compared to the usual care group in the long-term？

REal-world Data of CARdiometabolic ProtEcTion

This study is a single-center, historical prospective cohort study including patients diagnosed with metabolic cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, dyslipidemia, hyperuricemia. The primary outcome of the study is all-cause death and cardiovascular death, and the secondary outcome is major adverse cardiovascular events. We aim to measure associations of established or suspected cardiometabolic disease (CMD) risk factors and cardiovascular disease outcomes in a real-world representative cohort.

Sleep Disordered Breathing and Multimorbidity: The Xiangya SDB Cohort Study

Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is one of the most common sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), central sleep apnea (CSA), sleep-related hypoventilation, hypoxemia, etc., with OSA being the most prevalent. Also, SDB shows high comorbidities with multisystem diseases. Furthermore, compared to patients with pure SDB, those comorbid with SDB and other disorders like cardiometabolic dysfunction and cognitive impairment experience poorer quality of life, higher rate of disease progression and mortality, and a greater economic burden. Currently, there are limited cohorts to study the associations between SDB and multisystem diseases. The aim of this study is to establish an ambispective clinical cohort for SDB in Xiangya hospital from central-south China (Xiangya Sleep Disordered Breathing Cohort, Xiangya SDB cohort) including retrospective part and prospective part, which covers multi-dimensional data of sleep monitoring, demographic, daily behaviors, clinical manifestations and comorbidities status, life quality, treatment information and evaluation, etc. by self-reported questionnaires and objective assessments and tests. Besides, whole peripheral blood is drawn for following biomarkers study and omics analysis. The main goal is to achieve precise management of SDB and related multimorbidity, containing to early identify risk individuals for multisystem impairment, significantly improve their prognosis and ultimately enhance overall health. In detail: first, to reveal how multisystem impairment related to SDB evolves; second, to identify which indicators closely involve system dysfunction due to SDB; third, to build an efficient model and a cost-effective platform to screen high-risk population and tract therapeutic effect.

Preventative Screening and Health Coaching in a Food Insecure Population

The goal of this longitudinal study is to investigate the role of virtual health coaching on mitigation of cardiometabolic disease risk in an underserved, food insecure population. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does longitudinal, individualized health coaching directed at lifestyle modification reduce patient 10-year risk of heart attack or stroke? * Does longitudinal, individualized health coaching directed at lifestyle modification reduce rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes? * Does longitudinal, individualized health coaching directed at lifestyle modification improve accessibility to healthcare? Researchers will investigate the effects of regularly scheduled health coaching sessions on composite cardiometabolic risk profile as well as individual modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. Participants will: * Participate in in-person cardiovascular screening, occuring at the time of enrollment, months 3 and 6. * Engage in virtual health coaching sessions to talk about diet, exercise, weight loss, blood pressure and diabetes control, and accessibility to healthcare * Keep a log of their blood pressure

Prenatal Programming of Childhood Obesity and Cardio Metabolic Disorders

This is a prospective 11-17 -years follow-up of two existing pregnancy cohort (PREDO) and prevention (RADIEL) studies. The main objective is to investigate the associations between maternal overweight, obesity, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, gestational diabetes, and maternal-fetal metabolome, child's birth outcomes, and overweight and obesity and cardio metabolic health outcomes in childhood and adolescence. During this follow-up study, the mothers and their 11-17-year-old children are invited for a study visit and their cardio metabolic health is studied by many different methods.

Deciphering a Novel and Unique Brown Adipose Tissue Depot in Women

Type of Study: Clinical Trial Goal: The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate specific brown and beige fat cells in the dorsocervical area of young, lean adult women. Participant Population/Health Conditions: The study will involve 40 young, lean adult women. Main Questions: The main questions this study aims to answer are: * Are there active brown or beige adipocytes in the subcutaneous fat of the dorsocervical area (i.e., iBAT)? * What is the secretory function of these adipocytes? * How do traditional interventions like cold exposure, as well as new approaches like Beta-2 agonist stimulation and exercise, affect the thermogenesis of these fat cells at the cellular and molecular levels? Participants Will: Be randomized into one of four groups: thermoneutral exposure, cold exposure, aerobic exercise, or Beta-2 agonist treatment. Follow their assigned regimen for 4 weeks. Provide tissue samples from the dorsocervical area and abdomen before and after the 4-week intervention. Undergo analysis of these samples using advanced techniques to understand the presence and activity of brown and beige fat cells. Comparison Group: Researchers will compare the effects of different interventions (thermoneutral exposure, cold exposure, aerobic exercise, Beta-2 agonist treatment) on the presence and thermogenesis of brown and beige fat cells in the dorsocervical area.