PhD student: Pauline Duquenne
Title: Mental disorders as risk factors for obesity and type 2 diabetes
Supervisor(s): Valentina A. Andreeva
Doctoral school: Galilée
Promotion: 2022-2024
Funding: Projet Memories (ANR-21-CE36-0003-01)
Thesis abstract:
According to the World Health Organization, one adult in ten suffers from a mental health problem at any given time. Yet in France, as elsewhere, mental disorders are not the subject of significant scientific interest, despite their non-negligible contribution to the burden of disease, their chronic nature and the considerable reduction in life expectancy. Moreover, given the frequent comorbidity and common risk factors, the view of mental disorders as distinct disorders has been questioned. Furthermore, there is no specific mental multi-morbidity index, whereas there are around 40 physical multi-morbidity indices.
In general, premature mortality in people with mental disorders is often due to chronic non-communicable physical pathologies (such as type 2 diabetes) that have not been properly diagnosed or treated.
In this context, the main aim of this doctoral thesis is to elucidate the role of mental health disorders as determinants of nutrition-related chronic diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, in French adults. This is a multidisciplinary research project with two specific objectives: 1) to estimate and classify the relative risk of obesity and/or type 2 diabetes associated with different mental disorders; 2) to develop and validate an epidemiological index of mental multi-morbidity, capable of predicting the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
