Dr Rebecca Thomson

 
Dr Thomson has a background in nutrition and exercise physiology and an interest in the health benefits of physical activity and nutrition. Her program of research investigates the potential determinants of type 1 diabetes during preconception, pregnancy and early life. This includes investigating the impact of preconception lifestyle behaviours, maternal weight and gestational weight gain, maternal diet, physical activity levels, mental health and lifestyle during pregnancy, paternal weight and infant growth, diet and lifestyle.

This research aims to find when the best time is to intervene to optimise weight and nutrition in early life (in the parents before or during pregnancy or in the young child), to reduce a child's risk of developing type 1 diabetes. We will use information and samples from the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity (ENDIA) pregnancy-birth study to learn how a parent's weight and child’s weight gain and growth can affect the child's risk of developing the early stages of type 1 diabetes. We will also investigate how what foods the mother and child eat (diet) and their communities of bacteria (microbiome) living in their gut are involved. This includes studying the diet and microbiome of mothers during pregnancy, the diets of babies in their first two years of life, and how a mother's diet and gut bacteria affect her baby's gut bacteria. We think that one way weight and nutrition can affect the risk of type 1 diabetes is that the mother’s diet influences their gut microbiome during pregnancy and subsequently the infant’s microbiome after birth. This provides an opportunity to possibly prevent type 1 diabetes by making changes to what you eat or taking supplements that boost the helpful bacteria in your gut, like prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics.
          
Using information and samples from the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity (ENDIA) study we will investigate how a parent's weight and child’s weight gain and growth can affect the child's risk of developing the early stages of type 1 diabetes. We will also investigate how what foods the mother and child eat (diet) and their communities of bacteria (microbiome) living in their gut are involved.