The University of Osaka · Medicine
Professor Megu Y. Baden's research lab focuses on the long-term health impacts of dietary patterns, particularly plant-based diets, and their associations with chronic disease risk, metabolic health, and quality of life. The lab investigates how dietary quality—especially the distinction between healthful and unhealthful plant-based diets—affects cardiovascular health, type 2 diabetes, obesity-related biomarkers, and both physical and mental well-being over time. Using large-scale prospective cohort studies such as the Nurses' Health Study I and II, the lab examines dietary patterns, lifestyle factors, and their longitudinal effects on health outcomes. The research also explores the interplay between sleep duration, metabolic health, and cardiometabolic disease risk, emphasizing preventive nutrition and lifestyle medicine.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Improving plant-based diet quality over a 12-year period was associated with a lower risk of total and CVD mortality, whereas increased consumption of an unhealthful plant-based diet was associated with a higher risk of total and CVD mortality.
Lower risk of total stroke was observed by those who adhered to a healthful plant-based diet.
Adherence to a healthful plant-based diet is associated with favorable long-term changes in adiposity-associated biomarker concentrations in women.
Persistent short sleep duration or changes in sleep duration from early to middle adulthood were associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes in later life. These associations were weaker after obesity and metabolic comorbidities were accounted for.
This study revealed that there were significant trends toward lower systolic and diastolic BP with higher adiponectin not only in hypertensive people but also in normotensive people.
Few studies have evaluated the association between a healthful plant-based diet and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We followed 50 290 women in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS; 1992-2000) and 51 784 women in NHSII (1993-2001) for 8 years to investigate changes in plant-based diet quality in relation to changes in physical and mental HRQoL. Plant-based diet quality was assessed by three plant-based diet indices: overall plant-based diet index (PDI), healthful PDI (hPDI) and unhealthful PDI
The new Japanese Teaching Kitchen program is feasible with high program completion rates in Japanese office workers with obesity. While this was a small feasibility study, significant multiple improvements in dietary intakes, biometrics, and health related quality of life suggest that this line of inquiry warrants further exploration to address obesity and obesity-related diseases in Japan.
Polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid transfection can mimic viral infection, and Exendin-4 exerted an anti-apoptotic effect both in MIN6 and insulin-producing cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
The decrease of circulating adiponectin may start before the development of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia or MetS. Adiponectin is an important biomarker for reflecting the adverse influence of visceral fat in persons with MetS, and also in these subclinical states.
Patients with diabetes who consumed two meals per day showed greater intrapancreatic fat deposition than those who consumed three meals per day, even after adjustment for BMI. These findings support the current guideline for diabetes treatment that skipping meals should be avoided.
The current study has elucidated the significant associations of fast eating speed, late-night eating, and early morning awakening with IPFD.
UMIN-CTR (UMIN000052514).
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