Auxological perspectives on ‘growth’ in DOHaD

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 390-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lampl ◽  
A. Mummert ◽  
M. Schoen
Keyword(s):  
Disease Risk ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Functional Anatomy ◽  
Biological Clocks ◽  
Maternal Condition ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Specificity And Sensitivity ◽  
Multiple Variables

David Barker established growth as a seminal link between early development and later health attainment and disease risk. This was nothing less than a paradigm shift in health and medicine, turning the focus of disease causality away from contemporary environmental influences to earliest growth as a time when functional anatomy and physiology sets in place critical structures and function for a lifetime.Barker’s prodigious work investigated time- and place-specific interactions between maternal condition and exogenous environmental influences, focusing on how growth unfolds across development to function as a mechanistic link to ensuing health. Subsequent applications do not always attend to the specificity and sensitivity issues included in his original work, and commonly overlook the long-standing methods and knowledge base of auxology. Methodological areas in need of refinement include enhanced precision in how growth is represented and assessed. For example, multiple variables have been used as a referent for ‘growth,’ which is problematic because different body dimensions grow by different biological clocks with unique functional physiologies. In addition, categorical clinical variables obscure the spectrum of variability in growth experienced at the individual level. Finally, size alone is a limited measure as it does not capture how individuals change across age, or actually grow.The ground-breaking notion that prenatal influences are important for future health gave rise to robust interest in studying the fetus. Identifying the many pathways by which size is realized permits targeted interventions addressing meaningful mechanistic links between growth and disease risk to promote health across the lifespan.

scholarly journals Using a Digital Neuro Signature to measure longitudinal individual-level change in Alzheimer’s disease: the Altoida large cohort study

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene B. Meier ◽  
Max Buegler ◽  
Robbert Harms ◽  
Azizi Seixas ◽  
Arzu Çöltekin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Intraindividual Variability ◽  
Cognitive Test ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Neuropsychological Assessments

AbstractConventional neuropsychological assessments for Alzheimer’s disease are burdensome and inaccurate at detecting mild cognitive impairment and predicting Alzheimer’s disease risk. Altoida’s Digital Neuro Signature (DNS), a longitudinal cognitive test consisting of two active digital biomarker metrics, alleviates these limitations. By comparison to conventional neuropsychological assessments, DNS results in faster evaluations (10 min vs 45–120 min), and generates higher test-retest in intraindividual assessment, as well as higher accuracy at detecting abnormal cognition. This study comparatively evaluates the performance of Altoida’s DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments in intraindividual assessments of cognition and function by means of two semi-naturalistic observational experiments with 525 participants in laboratory and clinical settings. The results show that DNS is consistently more sensitive than conventional neuropsychological assessments at capturing longitudinal individual-level change, both with respect to intraindividual variability and dispersion (intraindividual variability across multiple tests), across three participant groups: healthy controls, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease. Dispersion differences between DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments were more pronounced with more advanced disease stages, and DNS-intraindividual variability was able to predict conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease. These findings are instrumental for patient monitoring and management, remote clinical trial assessment, and timely interventions, and will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease.

A Shortage of Neurologists — We Must Act Now: A Report From the AAN 2019 Transforming Leaders Program

Neurology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000012111
Author(s):  
Jennifer Juhl Majersik ◽  
Aiesha Ahmed ◽  
I-Hweii Amy Chen ◽  
Holly Shill ◽  
Gregory P. Hanes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Future Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Local Resources ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Neurologic Disorders ◽  
High Level ◽  
American Academy Of Neurology

In nearly every US state today, a large mismatch exists between the need for neurologists and neurological services and the availability of neurologists to provide these services. Patients with neurologic disorders are rising in prevalence and require access to high level care to reduce disability. The current neurology mismatch reduces access to care, worsens patient outcomes, and erodes career satisfaction and quality of life for neurologists as they face increasingly insurmountable demands. As a community, we must address this mismatch in the demand and supply of neurological care in an aggressive and sustained manner to ensure the future health of our patients and our specialty. The American Academy of Neurology has multiple ongoing initiatives to help reduce and resolve the existing mismatch. With the intent of raising awareness and widening the debate nationally, we present a strategic plan that the Academy could implement to coordinate and expand existing efforts. We characterize the suggested strategies as: shaping the demand, enhancing the workforce, and advocating for neurologist value. The proposed framework is based on available data and expert opinion when data were lacking. Prioritization of strategies will vary by geography, practice setting, and local resources. We believe the time to act is now, to allow concerted effort and targeted interventions to avert this looming public health crisis.

scholarly journals Gender Equality, Drinking Cultures and Second-Hand Harms from Alcohol in the 50 US States

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (23) ◽  
pp. 4619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karriker-Jaffe ◽  
Tam ◽  
Cook ◽  
Greenfield ◽  
Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Binge Drinking ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Abortion Rights ◽  
Harm To Others ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
Access To Contraception

Background: Gender inequality and cultures of binge drinking may increase the risk of second-hand harms from alcohol. Methods: Using the 2014–2015 National Alcohol Survey and 2015 National Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey (N = 7792), we examine associations of state-level gender equality measures (contraceptive access, abortion rights, women’s economic equality) and binge drinking cultures (rates of men’s and women’s binge drinking) with individual-level indicators of second-hand harms by drinking strangers and partners/spouses. Results: In main effects models, only male binge drinking was associated with greater odds of harms from drinking strangers. There were significant interactions of gender equality with male binge drinking: High male binge drinking rates were more strongly associated with stranger-perpetrated harms in states low on contraceptive access or abortion rights compared to states high on these measures. Conversely, male binge drinking was more strongly associated with spouse/partner-perpetrated second-hand harms in states with more economic equality, compared to states lower on this measure. Conclusions: Detrimental effects of high male binge drinking rates may be modified by gender equality. Targeted interventions may reduce alcohol-related harms experienced by women in states with high rates of male binge drinking. Restrictions in access to contraception and abortion may exacerbate harms due to men’s drinking.

scholarly journals Translating polygenic risk scores for clinical use by estimating the confidence bounds of risk prediction

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangming Sun ◽  
Yunpeng Wang ◽  
Lasse Folkersen ◽  
Yan Borné ◽  
Inge Amlien ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Prediction ◽  
Complex Disease ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Disease Status ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Correct Prediction ◽  
Confidence Bounds ◽  
Conformal Prediction ◽  
Polygenic Risk ◽  
Individual Level

AbstractA promise of genomics in precision medicine is to provide individualized genetic risk predictions. Polygenic risk scores (PRS), computed by aggregating effects from many genomic variants, have been developed as a useful tool in complex disease research. However, the application of PRS as a tool for predicting an individual’s disease susceptibility in a clinical setting is challenging because PRS typically provide a relative measure of risk evaluated at the level of a group of people but not at individual level. Here, we introduce a machine-learning technique, Mondrian Cross-Conformal Prediction (MCCP), to estimate the confidence bounds of PRS-to-disease-risk prediction. MCCP can report disease status conditional probability value for each individual and give a prediction at a desired error level. Moreover, with a user-defined prediction error rate, MCCP can estimate the proportion of sample (coverage) with a correct prediction.

scholarly journals Circadian Models of Serum Potassium, Sodium, and Calcium Concentrations in Healthy Individuals and Their Application to Cardiac Electrophysiology Simulations at Individual Level

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamil Fijorek ◽  
Miroslawa Puskulluoglu ◽  
Sebastian Polak
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Models ◽  
Cardiac Electrophysiology ◽  
Left Ventricular ◽  
Biological Clocks ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Potassium Sodium ◽  
Circadian Fluctuation ◽  
Model Equations

In the article a brief description of the biological basis of the regulation of human biological clocks was presented in order to introduce the role of circadian rhythms in physiology and specifically in the pharmacological translational tools based on the computational physiology models to motivate the need to provide models of circadian fluctuation in plasma cations. The main aim of the study was to develop statistical models of the circadian rhythm of potassium, sodium, and calcium concentrations in plasma. The developed ion models were further tested by assessing their influence on QT duration (cardiac endpoint) as simulated by the biophysically detailed models of human left ventricular cardiomyocyte. The main results are model equations along with an electronic supplement to the article that contains a fully functional implementation of all models.

scholarly journals Prevalence of Self-Reported Diabetes and Its Associated Factors: A Population-Based Study in Brazil

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana A. F. Da-Mata ◽  
Tais F. Galvao ◽  
Mauricio G. Pereira ◽  
Marcus T. Silva
Keyword(s):  
Disease Risk ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Diabetes Prevalence ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Population Based Study ◽  
Screening Programs ◽  
Associated Risk Factors

Aim. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of diabetes and its associated risk factors in adults from Brasilia, Brazil.Methods. The present cross-sectional population-based study consisted of interviews with individuals aged 18–65 years. Participants were selected through two-stage probability sampling by clusters and stratified by sex and age. Demographic and clinical data were collected directly with participants from February to May 2012. Self-reported diabetes prevalence was calculated at a 95% confidence interval (CI). Prevalence ratios (PR) were adjusted by Poisson regression with robust variance.Results. In all, 1,820 individuals were interviewed. Diabetes prevalence in the adult population of Brasilia was 10.1% (95% CI, 8.5%–11.6%). Variables associated with diabetes were an age between 35 and 49 years (PR = 1.83; 95% CI, 1.19–2.82) or 50 and 65 years (PR = 1.95; 95% CI, 1.17–3.23), hypertension (PR = 4.04; 95% CI, 2.66–6.13), respiratory disease (PR = 1.67; 95% CI, 1.11–2.50), cardiovascular disease (PR = 1.74; 95% CI, 1.15–2.63), and pain/discomfort (PR = 1.71; 95% CI, 1.21–2.41).Conclusion. Diabetes is a prevalent condition in adults living in Brasilia, and disease risk increases with age and comorbidities. Future health policies should focus on screening programs and prevention for the more vulnerable groups.

scholarly journals Mortality and major disease risk among migrants of the 1991–2001 Balkan wars to Sweden: A register-based cohort study

PLoS Medicine ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. e1003392
Author(s):  
Edda Bjork Thordardottir ◽  
Li Yin ◽  
Arna Hauksdottir ◽  
Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz ◽  
Anna-Clara Hollander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Adverse Health Outcomes ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
National Patient

Background In recent decades, millions of refugees and migrants have fled wars and sought asylum in Europe. The aim of this study was to quantify the risk of mortality and major diseases among migrants during the 1991–2001 Balkan wars to Sweden in comparison to other European migrants to Sweden during the same period. Methods and findings We conducted a register-based cohort study of 104,770 migrants to Sweden from the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars and 147,430 migrants to Sweden from 24 other European countries during the same period (1991–2001). Inpatient and specialized outpatient diagnoses of cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, and psychiatric disorders were obtained from the Swedish National Patient Register and the Swedish Cancer Register, and mortality data from the Swedish Cause of Death Register. Adjusting for individual-level data on sociodemographic characteristics and emigration country smoking prevalence, we used Cox regressions to contrast risks of health outcomes for migrants of the Balkan wars and other European migrants. During an average of 12.26 years of follow-up, being a migrant of the Balkan wars was associated with an elevated risk of being diagnosed with CVD (HR 1.39, 95% CI 1.34–1.43, p < 0.001) and dying from CVD (HR 1.45, 95% CI 1.29–1.62, p < 0.001), as well as being diagnosed with cancer (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.08–1.24, p < 0.001) and dying from cancer (HR 1.27, 95% CI 1.15–1.41, p < 0.001), compared to other European migrants. Being a migrant of the Balkan wars was also associated with a greater overall risk of being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder (HR 1.19, 95% CI 1.14–1.23, p < 0.001), particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (HR 9.33, 95% CI 7.96–10.94, p < 0.001), while being associated with a reduced risk of suicide (HR 0.68, 95% CI 0.48–0.96, p = 0.030) and suicide attempt (HR 0.57, 95% CI 0.51–0.65, p < 0.001). Later time period of migration and not having any first-degree relatives in Sweden at the time of immigration were associated with greater increases in risk of CVD and psychiatric disorders. Limitations of the study included lack of individual-level information on health status and behaviors of migrants at the time of immigration. Conclusions Our findings indicate that migrants of the Balkan wars faced considerably elevated risks of major diseases and mortality in their first decade in Sweden compared to other European migrants. War migrants without family members in Sweden or with more recent immigration may be particularly vulnerable to adverse health outcomes. Results underscore that persons displaced by war are a vulnerable group in need of long-term health surveillance for psychiatric disorders and somatic disease.

scholarly journals A summary-statistics-based approach to examine the role of serotonin transporter promoter tandem repeat polymorphism in psychiatric phenotypes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arunabha Majumdar ◽  
Preksha Patel ◽  
Bogdan Pasaniuc ◽  
Roel A. Ophoff
Keyword(s):  
Serotonin Transporter ◽  
Tandem Repeat ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Significant Evidence ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide

AbstractIn genetic studies of psychiatric disorders in the pre-genome-wide association study (GWAS) era, one of the most commonly studied loci is the serotonin transporter (SLC6A4) promoter polymorphism, a 43-base-pair insertion/deletion polymorphism in the promoter region (5-HTTLPR). The genetic association signals between 5-HTTLPR and psychiatric phenotypes, however, have been inconsistent across many studies. Since the polymorphism cannot be tested via available SNP arrays, we had previously proposed an efficient machine learning algorithm to predict the genotypes of 5-HTTLPR based on the genotypes of eight nearby SNPs, which requires access to individual-level genotype and phenotype data. To utilize the advantage of publicly available GWAS summary statistics obtained from studies with very large sample sizes, we develop a GWAS summary-statistics-based approach for testing the variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) associations with various phenotypes. We first cross-verify the accuracy of the summary-statistics-based approach for 61 phenotypes in the UK Biobank. Since we observed a strong similarity between the predicted individual-level 5-HTTLPR genotype-based approach and the summary-statistics-based approach, we applied our method to the available neurobehavioral GWAS summary statistics data obtained from large-scale GWAS. We found no genome-wide significant evidence for association between 5-HTTLPR and any of the neurobehavioral traits. We did observe, however, genome-wide significant evidence for association between this locus and human adult height, BMI, and total cholesterol. Our summary-statistics-based approach provides a systematic way to examine the role of VNTRs and related types of genetic polymorphisms in disease risk and trait susceptibility of phenotypes for which large-scale GWAS summary statistics data are available.

scholarly journals The Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Stratified Cohort (IDEA-RiSCo): Rationale, Methods, and Baseline Characteristics

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Kieling ◽  
Claudia Buchweitz ◽  
Arthur Caye ◽  
Pedro Manfro ◽  
Rivka Pereira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Composite Score ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Mri Scans ◽  
Multiple Variables ◽  
Baseline Characteristics ◽  
Composite Risk ◽  
Environmental Measures ◽  
The Individual

Background: The characterization of adolescents at high risk for developing depression has traditionally relied on the presence or absence of single risk factors. More recently, the use of composite risk scores combining information from multiple variables has gained attention in prognostic research in the field of mental health. We previously developed a sociodemographic composite score to estimate the individual level probability of depression occurrence in adolescence, the Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Score (IDEA-RS).Objectives: In this report, we present the rationale, methods, and baseline characteristics of the Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence Risk Stratified Cohort (IDEA-RiSCo), a study designed for in-depth examination of multiple neurobiological, psychological, and environmental measures associated with the risk of developing and with the presence of depression in adolescence, with a focus on immune/inflammatory and neuroimaging markers.Methods: Using the IDEA-RS as a tool for risk stratification, we recruited a new sample of adolescents enriched for low (LR) and high (HR) depression risk, as well as a group of adolescents with a currently untreated major depressive episode (MDD). Methods for phenotypic, peripheral biological samples, and neuroimaging assessments are described, as well as baseline clinical characteristics of the IDEA-RiSCo sample.Results: A total of 7,720 adolescents aged 14–16 years were screened in public state schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We were able to identify individuals at low and high risk for developing depression in adolescence: in each group, 50 participants (25 boys, 25 girls) were included and successfully completed the detailed phenotypic assessment with ascertainment of risk/MDD status, blood and saliva collections, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Across a variety of measures of psychopathology and exposure to negative events, there was a clear pattern in which either the MDD group or both the HR and the MDD groups exhibited worse indicators in comparison to the LR group.Conclusion: The use of an empirically-derived composite score to stratify risk for developing depression represents a promising strategy to establish a risk-enriched cohort that will contribute to the understanding of the neurobiological correlates of risk and onset of depression in adolescence.

scholarly journals Identifying frail populations for disease risk prediction and intervention planning in the Covid-19 era: a focus on social isolation and psychosocial vulnerability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Cerami ◽  
Marco Canevelli ◽  
Gaia Santi ◽  
Caterina Galandra ◽  
Alessandra Dodich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Status ◽  
General Population ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
The Impact

Background: The early identification of fragile populations in the Covid-19 era would help governments to allocate resources and plan strategies to contain consequences of the pandemic. Beyond frailty, social vulnerability to environmental stressors, such as the social distancing enforced to reduce the SARS-CoV2 contagion, can modify long-term disease risk and induce health status changes in the general population. Methods: We assessed frailty and social vulnerability indices in 1258 Italian residents during the lockdown phase (March 14-31, 2020) via an on-line survey. We compared indices taking into account age categories (young, middle, older adults and elders) and gender. Results: While frailty showed a linear increase with age and was greater in females than in males, social vulnerability was higher in young adults and elders compared to middle aged and older adults, and in males than females. Both frailty and social vulnerability contributed in explaining the individual perception of the impact of Covid-19 emergency on health, which was further modulated by proactive attitudes/behaviors and social isolation.Conclusions: Social isolation and loneliness following the Covid-19 outbreak may exert dramatic psychosocial effects in the general population. The early detection of vulnerable categories, at risk to become ill and develop long-lasting health status changes, would help in the next future to prevent consequences on general well-being by allocating resources to targeted interventions managing psychosocial distress and increasing young adults and elderly resilience towards the post-Covid-19 crisis.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document