Helen Colhoun Research Group

The SDRN-epidemiology group conducts diabetes research using de-identified electronic health care records linked to other datasets.  It operates as a subgroup of NRS Scotland diabetes research (https://www.nhsresearchscotland.org.uk/research-areas/diabetes). The group includes clinicians and researchers across Scotland.  The Diabetes Informatics and Epidemiology team at University of Edinburgh led by Helen Colhoun curates the data and provides access to authorised users in a secure setting.

Examples of current work of the Diabetes Informatics and Epidemiology team are:

• Pharmacoepidemiology of diabetes drugs - analyses of real world efficacy and safety of drugs used in people with diabetes.
• COVID-19 and diabetes:   Includes for example analyses of association of COVID-19 exposure with incident diabetes, impact of past infection on diabetes outcomes, description of extent of epidemic and excess deaths in diabetes.
• Disease prediction from retinal imaging: Analyses of whether predictors learned from retinal imaging are useful in the prediction of   risk of other outcomes in diabetes including CVD, kidney disease. Analyses of   whether deep learning can be used to improve the autograder used for the screening programme and reduce NHS workload.
• Glycaemia trajectories in type-1 diabetes and association with complications: examining determinants of individual trajectories of glycaemic control across the spectrum of age and diabetes duration and the prospective association of glycaemic control with risk of acute and chronic complications.
• EXCEED - A Pan-European Post-Authorisation Safety Study: Risk Of Pancreatic Cancer Among Type 2 Diabetes Patients Who Initiated Exenatide As Compared With Those Who Initiated Other Non-Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Receptor Agonists Based Glucose Lowering Drugs.

Read more about EXCEED on the study website: 

EXCEED website (external link)

Publications by the Scottish Diabetes Research Network (SDRN) Epidemiology Group: 

Scottish Diabetes Research Network (SDRN) Epidemiology Group publications – ORCID (external website)

A cohort of people with type 1 diabetes in Scotland who kindly donated biosamples and access to their data for research  into the pathogenenesis and prevention of diabetes and its complications. See https://scottish-diabetes-research-network-t1-bioresource.ed.ac.uk/

Current studies include:

• A UK/Canada Collaboration on the genetics of long-term diabetes complications and their risks factors amongst people with type -1 diabetes. This study aims to understand the genetic basis for variability residual beta-cell function as measured by C-peptide levels, age at diabetes onset and glycaemic control in type 1 diabetes (T1D) and its contribution to diabetes complications  in collaboration with colleagues in Canada (PI: Professor Andrew Paterson).
• Harnessing genetic information in the SDRNT1BIO to understand Type 1 diabetes and its complications. This study uses genetic association studies in the SDRNT1BIO to yield insight into the pathways involved in type 1 diabetes and its complications so that new treatments that interfere with these pathways can be designed.

Publications by the SDRN-Epi group (ORCID):

SDRNT1BIO Type 1 Bioresource Publications on ORCID (external website)

Hypo-RESOLVE research consortium working together to address the problem of hypoglycaemia in type-1 diabetes patients. Hypoglycaemia, also called low blood sugar, is a condition strongly affects patients with type-1 diabetes, especially if they take insulin. Hypoglycaemia can cause cognitive dysfunction, coma, and cardiac arrhythmia, cardiovascular complications, and death. The aim of this study is to bring multilevel expertise from academic and industry partners to reduce the burden of hypoglycaemia amongst patients with diabetes.

Specific objectives include:

1. Create a secure, sustainable database
2. Conduct a series of systematic statistical analyses
3. Establish most reliable and accurate approach to reporting hypoglycaemia
4. Determine psychological burden of hypoglycaemia
5. Establish the true economic/quality of life burden of hypoglycaemia
6. Progress our understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of hypoglycaemia
7. Combine our finding and reclassifications of hypoglycaemia.

Read more about the Hypo-RESOLVE research consortium on the project website:

Hypo-RESOLVE (external link)

During the pandemic we worked with Public Health Scotland on the Epidemiology of COVID-19 and created the REACT-SCOT case control study. 

REACT-SCOT: Epidemiology of COVID -19 publications:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0505-8634

Professor Colhoun is an internationally known trialist- she has co-designed and been a Steering Committee member on several pivotal trials in Diabetes and in Cardiovascular Disease including:

• CARDS (Atorvastatin – Pfizer);
• REWIND (Dulaglutide – Eli Lilly);
• SELECT (Semaglutide – Novo Nordisk);
• ODYSSEY-3 (Alirocumab – Sanofi/Regeneron)
• FINE-ONE (Finerenone – Bayer);
• REMOVAL (Metformin – JDRF)

Diabetes, Risk Prediction, Epidemiology, Medical Statistics, ‘Omics, Genetics, Disease Stratification, Covid-19, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence