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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		The value of cohorts in research studies
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-11-01 19:00:00
	Description:		When epidemiologists study cohorts – or rather, a group of people who have commonalities such as age, ethnicity or social class – they can often garner information that’s beyond their original research. Janet Wojcicki of the University of California, San Francisco, has been following a Latina cohort that was recruited in pregnancy and followed for a number of years. "Our primary outcome was really to better understand factors that are related to obesity and development of chronic disease in early childhood, but we also measured telomeres – the protective cap of the DNA." Shorter telomeres are associated with chronic disease development. Wojcicki found in this cohort that early, exclusive breastfeeding of infants was linked to longer telomeres. She says they are now looking into why this particular cohort has a very high rate of asthma. "So we’re trying to understand, is it because we have a lot of obesity in our cohort? Is it something about the neighborhoods that families are living in, where they have environmental exposure? So, that’s something else."
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