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Dr Mohammad Talaei

Mohammad

Lecturer in Life Course Epidemiology

Email: m.talaei@qmul.ac.uk

Profile

I am a Lecturer in Life Course Epidemiology in the Centre for Preventive Neurology. My background is in clinical medicine and public health. As an epidemiologist, I am interested in the etiology of diseases, particularly those rooted in early life exposures. My research is mainly based on large-scale cohort studies, and I have worked on a wide range of populations and diseases.

I was the Director and co-principal investigator of the Isfahan Cohort Study (ICS), a prospective population-based study on cardiovascular disease risk factors. I was later trained in nutritional epidemiology and researched the role of diet in the development of cardiometabolic diseases and impaired cognitive function. Since I joined the QMUL, I have been studying the role of diet in 

childhood asthma and lung function, with a particular interest in gene-diet interaction. In response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease, I contributed to establishing a population-based cohort study, COVIDENCE-UK, to investigate COVID-19. My recent studies delve into the shared developmental origins of lung function, cardiovascular traits, cognitive function, and Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as shared genetic and environmental risk factors of asthma and ADHD in childhood.

I undertook clinical training (MD) at the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (Iran). I have a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Birmingham (UK) and attained my PhD from the National University of Singapore (Singapore). I am an editor for the International Journal of Epidemiology. I teach in the Epidemiology and Statistics module for postgraduate students in the Global Public Health and Policy course.

Research

Research Interests:

  • Shared developmental origins of traits and diseases in respiratory, cardiovascular, and cognitive systems
  • Role of diet in the development of diseases, particularly its interplay with genetic polymorphisms (gene-diet interaction) and with respect to early life exposures

Publications

Please click through to see a complete list of Mohammad's publications

Outstanding publications

  1. Talaei M, Hughes DA, Mahmoud O, Emmett PM, Granell R, Guerra S, Shaheen SO. Dietary intake of vitamin A, lung function, and incident asthma in childhood. Eur Respir J. 2021 Sep 24:2004407. doi: 10.1183/13993003.04407-2020. https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/58/4/2004407
  2. Talaei M, Sdona E, Calder PC, Jones LR, Emmett PM, Granell R, et al. Intake of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in childhood, FADS genotype, and incident asthma. Eur Respir J. 2021 Sep 2;58(3):2003633. https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/58/3/2003633
  3. Jolliffe DA, Holt H, Greenig M, Talaei M, Perdek N, Pfeffer P, et al. Effect of a test-and-treat approach to vitamin D supplementation on risk of all cause acute respiratory tract infection and covid-19: phase 3 randomised controlled trial (CORONAVIT). BMJ. 2022;378:e071230. https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071230
  4. Talaei M, Wang YL, Yuan JM, Pan A, Koh WP. Meat, dietary heme iron and risk of type 2 diabetes: The Singapore Chinese Health Study. Am J Epidemiol.  2017 Oct;186(7): 824–833. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwx156
  5. Pan A, Wang Y, Talaei M, Hu FB. Relation of Smoking with Total Mortality and Cardiovascular Events Among Patients With Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review. Circulation. 2015 Nov 10;132(19):1795-804. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.017926
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