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Nevin Manimala Statistics

Birth weight is positively associated with adult osteoporosis risk: observational and Mendelian randomization studies

J Bone Miner Res. 2021 Jun 9. doi: 10.1002/jbmr.4316. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The relationship between birth weight and osteoporosis was inconsistent in previous observational studies. Therefore, we performed a systematic evaluation to determine the inconsistent relationship and further make causal inference based on the UK Biobank datasets (~500,000 individuals) and individual/summary-level genetic datasets. Observational analyses found consistent negative associations either between birth weight and estimated bone mineral density (eBMD) or between genetic risk score (GRS) of birth weight and eBMD in total subjects, and sex-stratified subgroups. Mediation analyses detected significant mediation effects of adult weight and height on associations between birth weight and eBMD. Birth weight was causally associated not only with three BMD phenotypes (eBMD, total body [TB]-BMD, and femoral neck [FN]-BMD) under two effect models (total and fetal effect), but also with the risk of fracture using different Mendelian randomization (MR) methods. Multivariable MR analyses detected the pleiotropic effects of some environmental factors (e.g., gestational duration, head circumference, hip circumference) on the associations between birth weight and BMD/fracture. Three BMD phenotypes (eBMD, TB-BMD, and FN-BMD) have significant mediation effects on the associations between birth weight and fracture by using a novel mediation MR analysis under the multivariable MR framework. This multistage systematic study found consistent causal associations between birth weight and osteoporosis risk, fetal origin of genetic effects underlying the associations, and several mediation factors on the detected associations. The results enhanced our understanding of the effects of fetal original phenotypes on outcomes in late adulthood and provided helpful clues for early prevention research on osteoporosis. © 2021 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).

PMID:34105796 | DOI:10.1002/jbmr.4316

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The impact of adjuvant treatment with external beam radiotherapy and vaginal brachytherapy on health-related quality of life in patients with early-stage endometrioid endometrial carcinoma – initial results of a prospective study

Ginekol Pol. 2021 Jun 9. doi: 10.5603/GP.a2021.0112. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Our study evaluates the impact of adjuvant treatment with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) combined with vaginal high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR BT) on health-related quality of life (HRQL) in patients with early-stage endometrioid endometrial carcinoma.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We assessed HRQL of patients based on the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire, with endometrial cancer specific HRQL module – EORTC QLQ-EN24. From March 2019 to April 2020 we enrolled 20 patients with early-stage endometrioid endometrial carcinoma, qualified for adjuvant treatment after hysterectomy. We compared the scores measured with the questionnaires at the beginning and at the end of the treatment.

RESULTS: There was a statistically significant decrease in the mean of global health status/quality of life assessed according to the EORTC QLQ-C30 scale, from 62.25 ± 13.12 at the beginning of the adjuvant radiotherapy to 55.85 ± 14.68 at the end of the treatment (p = 0.047). The mean appetite loss score was higher at the onset of the treatment as compared to its value after EBRT, 19.9 ± 27.33 vs 11.6 ± 19.52 (p = 0.043). Similarly to the mean constipation score, which was 29.85 ± 30.40 vs 11.6 ± 19.52 (p = 0.013). The mean diarrhoea symptom scale increased from 16.55 ± 20.16 to 56.75 ± 36.10 (p = 0.001). In the EORTC QLQ-EN24 scales, gastrointestinal symptoms scores were higher at the end of the treatment, (with the mean of 26.45 ± 22.76) as compared to 14.30 ± 16.52 at the beginning of EBRT (p = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS: Patients who receive adjuvant radiotherapy have decreased quality of life during the treatment reporting more serious gastrointestinal symptoms. The potential risk of treatment-related toxicity should be taken into account during the treatment planning process in order to minimize the deterioration of HRQL.

PMID:34105737 | DOI:10.5603/GP.a2021.0112

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Nevin Manimala Statistics

Why do some patients with stage 1A and 1B endometrial endometrioid carcinoma experience recurrence? A retrospective study in search of prognostic factors

Ginekol Pol. 2021 Jun 9. doi: 10.5603/GP.a2021.0093. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Endometrial endometrioid carcinoma (EEC) is the most encountered subtype of endometrial cancer (EC). Our study aimed to investigate the factors affecting recurrence in patients with stage 1A and 1B EEC.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Our study included 284 patients diagnosed with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage 1A/1B EEC in our center from 2010 to 2018. The clinicopathological characteristics of the patients were obtained retrospectively from their electronic files.

RESULTS: The median age of the patients was 60 years (range 31-89). The median follow-up time of the patients was 63.6 months (range 3.3-185.6). Twenty-two (7.74%) patients relapsed during follow-up. Among the relapsed patients, 59.1% were at stage 1A ECC, and 40.9% were at stage 1B. In our study, the one-, three-, and five-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) rates were 98.9%, 95.4%, and 92.9%, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, grade and tumor size were found to be independent parameters of RFS in all stage 1 EEC patients. Furthermore, the Ki-67 index was found to affect RFS in stage 1A EEC patients, and tumor grade affected RFS in stage 1B EEC patients. In the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the statistically significant cut-off values were determined for tumor size and Ki-67 index in stage 1 EEC patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Stage 1-EEC patients in the higher risk group in terms of tumor size, Ki-67, and grade should be closely monitored for recurrence. Defining the prognostic factors for recurrence in stage 1 EEC patients may lead to changes in follow-up algorithms.

PMID:34105738 | DOI:10.5603/GP.a2021.0093

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Nevin Manimala Statistics

Impact of Social Frailty on Relocation of Older Adults

J Frailty Aging. 2021;10(3):254-258. doi: 10.14283/jfa.2021.3.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The relationship between frailty and variables such as housing are the least included in models of frailty and research on frailty or social frailty and relocation is negligible. The decision to relocate is complex and demanding for older adults with a loss of independence but little is known about what makes older adults relocate to congregated housing designated for older adults, let alone in combination with social frailty, and how they navigate this transition.

OBJECTIVES: This mixed method descriptive study aims to understand the influence of social frailty for a population of French-speaking semi-independent older adults relocating to a housing continuum community.

DESIGN: Semi-structured individual interviews including sociodemographic data and the PRISMA-7 Frailty Scale were conducted with recently relocated older adults.

SETTING: A newly opened French-speaking housing continuum community in Eastern Canada that offers luxury apartments for independent older adults, two assisted living facilities for semi-independent older adults along with a long-term care facility.

PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-nine older adults with a mean age of 85 years, mostly female, married or widowed and highly educated.

MEASUREMENTS: Content analysis of the transcribed recorded interviews and descriptive statistical analyses to examine relationships between the frailty PRISMA-7 scale, answers to additional questions and the sociodemographic data.

RESULTS: There was not a significant difference in the scores for socialization before and after relocation nor between prior help and current help; however, there was a significant negative correlation between help and socialization before and after relocation. Three main themes included: imposed influences, push and pull factors and post relocation.

CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that several social factors contributed to relocation and that participants were experiencing social frailty. Participants were at the crossover point of being vulnerable to experiencing additional deficits which would potentially have led to higher frailty had they not relocated.

PMID:34105710 | DOI:10.14283/jfa.2021.3

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Nevin Manimala Statistics

FRAILTY, SARCOPENIA AND LONG TERM CARE UTILIZATION IN OLDER POPULATIONS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

J Frailty Aging. 2021;10(3):272-280. doi: 10.14283/jfa.2021.7.

ABSTRACT

This systematic literature review documents the link between frailty or sarcopenia, conceptualized as dimensions of physical health, and the use of long-term care services by older individuals. Long-term care services include formal and informal care provided at home as well as in institutions. A systematic review was performed according to PRISMA requirements using the following databases: PubMed-Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Academic Search Premier. We included all quantitative studies published in English between January 2000 and December 2018 focusing on individuals aged 50 or more, using a relevant measurement of sarcopenia or physical frailty and a long-term care related outcome. A quality assessment was carried out using the questionnaire established by the Good Practice Task Force Report of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Five subsets of long-term care outcome were considered: 1/ nursing home placement (NHP), 2/ nursing home short stay (NHSS), 3/ formal personal care (FPC), 4/ formal home help (FHH), 5/ informal care (IC). Out of 1943 studies, 17 were finally included in the review. With some studies covering several LTC outcomes, frailty and / or sarcopenia were associated with increased LTC use in 17 out of 26 cases (NHP: 5/6, NHSS: 3/4, FPC: 5/7, FHH: 1/4, IC: 3/5) The association was not consistent in 5 cases (NHP: 1/6, NHSS: 1/4, FPC: 2/7, FHH: 0/4, IC: 1/5) and the association was either not significant or the results inconclusive in the remaining 9 cases. Overall, while results on sarcopenia are scarce, evidence support a positive association between frailty and LTC use. The evidence is stronger for the association of physical frailty with nursing home placement / short stay as well as on FPC. There is less (more heterogeneous) evidence regarding the correlation between physical frailty and FHH or IC use. Results need to be confirmed by more advanced statistical methods or design based on longitudinal data.

PMID:34105712 | DOI:10.14283/jfa.2021.7

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Nevin Manimala Statistics

Associations between peripheral blood microbiome and the risk of hypertension

Am J Hypertens. 2021 Jun 9:hpab084. doi: 10.1093/ajh/hpab084. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Although previous studies have reported the gut microbiome is closely related to hypertension development, whether the change in blood microbiome is associated with the risk of hypertension remains unclear.

METHODS: One hundred and fifty incident hypertension cases and 150 age (± 2 years) and gender (1:1) matched non-hypertension controls included in this nested case-control study were recruited from a prospective cohort study of “135”. The composition of the blood microbiome was characterized using bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. The relative abundance of detected bacteria was converted to a negative logarithm of 10 for the statistical analysis.

RESULTS: Totally, 10,689,961 high-quality sequences were acquired. The Chao1 index of the blood microbiome in non-hypertension controls was significantly higher than that in hypertensive group (2302.08±752.78 vs 1598.21±500.88, P < 0.001). Compared with the non-hypertension controls, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria phylum was significantly increased (P<0.001), while the relative abundance of phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were significantly reduced in the hypertensive cases (P<0.001 and P=0.039, respectively). At genus level, the risk of hypertension was directly associated with the relative abundance ofAcinetobacter(OR: 1.43, 95% CI: 1.01-2.03),Sphingomonas(OR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.32-2.56), andStaphylococcus(OR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.36-0.73), respectively.In addition, the relative abundance of Pseudomonas was minor positively correlated to the TC level. However, the relative Staphylococcus level was minor positively correlated to HDL-c level.

CONCLUSIONS: The composition of the blood microbiome is significantly associated with the development of hypertension.

PMID:34105723 | DOI:10.1093/ajh/hpab084

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Nevin Manimala Statistics

Personalized machine learning of depressed mood using wearables

Transl Psychiatry. 2021 Jun 9;11(1):338. doi: 10.1038/s41398-021-01445-0.

ABSTRACT

Depression is a multifaceted illness with large interindividual variability in clinical response to treatment. In the era of digital medicine and precision therapeutics, new personalized treatment approaches are warranted for depression. Here, we use a combination of longitudinal ecological momentary assessments of depression, neurocognitive sampling synchronized with electroencephalography, and lifestyle data from wearables to generate individualized predictions of depressed mood over a 1-month time period. This study, thus, develops a systematic pipeline for N-of-1 personalized modeling of depression using multiple modalities of data. In the models, we integrate seven types of supervised machine learning (ML) approaches for each individual, including ensemble learning and regression-based methods. All models were verified using fourfold nested cross-validation. The best-fit as benchmarked by the lowest mean absolute percentage error, was obtained by a different type of ML model for each individual, demonstrating that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. The voting regressor, which is a composite strategy across ML models, was best performing on-average across subjects. However, the individually selected best-fit models still showed significantly less error than the voting regressor performance across subjects. For each individual’s best-fit personalized model, we further extracted top-feature predictors using Shapley statistics. Shapley values revealed distinct feature determinants of depression over time for each person ranging from co-morbid anxiety, to physical exercise, diet, momentary stress and breathing performance, sleep times, and neurocognition. In future, these personalized features can serve as targets for a personalized ML-guided, multimodal treatment strategy for depression.

PMID:34103481 | DOI:10.1038/s41398-021-01445-0

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Genome-wide copy number variation analysis of hepatitis B infection in a Japanese population

Hum Genome Var. 2021 Jun 8;8(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41439-021-00154-w.

ABSTRACT

Genome-wide association studies have been performed to identify common genetic variants associated with hepatitis B (HB). However, little is known about copy number variations (CNVs) in HB. In this study, we performed a genome-wide CNV analysis between 1830 healthy controls and 1031 patients with HB infection after quality control. Using signal calling by the Axiom Analysis Suite and CNV detection by PennCNV software, we obtained a total of 4494 CNVs across all individuals. The genes with CNVs that were found only in the HB patients were associated with the immune system, such as antigen processing. A gene-level CNV association test revealed statistically significant CNVs in the contactin 6 (CNTN6) gene. Moreover, we also performed gene-level CNV association tests in disease subgroups, including hepatocellular carcinoma patients, liver cirrhosis patients, and HBV carriers, including asymptomatic carriers and patients with HBV-derived chronic hepatitis. Our findings from germline cells suggested that patient-specific CNVs may be inherent genetic risk factors for HB.

PMID:34103483 | DOI:10.1038/s41439-021-00154-w

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Exposure to screens and children’s language development in the EDEN mother-child cohort

Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 8;11(1):11863. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-90867-3.

ABSTRACT

Studies in children have reported associations of screen time and background TV on language skills as measured by their parents. However, few large, longitudinal studies have examined language skills assessed by trained psychologists, which is less prone to social desirability. We assessed screen time and exposure to TV during family meals at ages 2, 3 and 5-6 years in 1562 children from the French EDEN cohort. Language skills were evaluated by parents at 2 years (Communicative Development Inventory, CDI) and by trained psychologists at 3 (NEPSY and ELOLA batteries) and 5-6 years (verbal IQ). Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations were assessed by linear regression adjusted for important confounders. Overall, daily screen time was not associated with language scores, except in cross-sectional at age 2 years, where higher CDI scores were observed for intermediate screen time. Exposure to TV during family meals was consistently associated with lower language scores: TV always on (vs never) at age 2 years was associated with lower verbal IQ (- 3.2 [95% IC: – 6.0, – 0.3] points), independent of daily screen time and baseline language score. In conclusion, public health policies should better account for the context of screen watching, not only its amount.

PMID:34103551 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-90867-3

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Adherence to low-carbohydrate diet in relation to gastric cancer: findings from a case-control study in Iran

Eur J Cancer Prev. 2021 Jul 1;30(4):297-303. doi: 10.1097/CEJ.0000000000000627.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the association between adherence to low carbohydrate diet (LCD) and risk of gastric cancer (GC). This hospital-based case-control study was conducted in Iran Cancer Institute, Tehran, Iran between 2010 and 2012. Totally, 178 patients with GC and 276 apparently healthy controls participated in this study. Cases were histo-pathologically confirmed GC patients aged ≥40 years diagnosed with GC in the last year. Dietary intakes were assessed using a validated 146-item Diet History Questionnaire. We computed the LCD score trough the protocol explained by Halton. Patients with GC were older (60.8 vs. 53.2 years, P < 0.001) and more likely to be male (74.2 vs. 63.8%, P = 0.02), married (97.8 vs. 86.6%, P < 0.001) and illiterate (62.4% vs. 26.1%, P < 0.001) than controls. Before adjusting for covariates, adherence to LCD-diet was not associated with risk of GC [odds ratio (OR) 1.31; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82-2.09 for highest vs. lowest tertile; Ptrend < 0.26]. Adjustments for several potential confounders including H-pylori infection and BMI, participants in the highest tertile of LCD score were 7% more likely to have GC than those in the lowest tertile; however, it was not statistically significant (OR 1.07; 95% CI 0.59-1.95 for highest vs. lowest tertile; Ptrend < 0.79). No significant association was also seen between adherence to animal- or vegetable-based LCD diet and risk of GC. In conclusion, we failed to find any evidence on the association between consumption of LCD and odds of GC. Further studies, in particular of prospective design, are required to confirm these findings.

PMID:34103461 | DOI:10.1097/CEJ.0000000000000627