Search

This pilot randomized controlled trial tested the potential efficacy of a brief internet-based, passive psychoeducation intervention, Free From Abuse, in promoting healthy relationships among young adults. Participants aged 18 to 24 years were randomly assigned to an intervention treatment (n = 71) or a placebo control condition (n = 77). Participants in the treatment arm had a larger increase in recognition of abusive behavior and reduction in domestic violence myth acceptance scores than participants in the control arm postintervention and after one week. This study provides preliminary evidence that brief internet-based passive psychoeducation is potentially useful in promoting healthy relationships among young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biochemical markers of bone turnover are lower in patients with type 2 diabetes, which may be explained by genetic variants being associated with type 2 diabetes and bone turnover as well as environmental factors. We hypothesized that bone turnover markers associate with and predict changes in glucose homeostasis after control for genetics and shared environment. Methods: 1071 healthy, non-diabetic (at baseline, 1997–2000) adult mono- and dizygotic twins participating in the prospective study GEMINAKAR were reassessed between 2010 and 2012 with clinical evaluation, biochemical tests and oral glucose tolerance test. Fasting bone turnover markers (CTX, P1NP and osteocalcin) were measured. The association between bone turnover, glucose homeostasis and the ability of bone turnover markers to predict changes in glucose homeostasis were assessed in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Analyses were performed both at an individual level and adjusted for shared environmental and genetic factors. Results: Glucose levels increased with age, and 33 (3%) participants had developed type 2 diabetes at follow-up. In women, bone turnover markers increased with age, whereas for men only osteocalcin increased with age. Bone turnover markers were not associated with fasting glucose, insulin, or HOMA-IR at baseline or follow-up before or after adjustment for age, sex, BMI, smoking, and use of medication at baseline. Variation in bone turnover markers was mainly explained by unique environmental factors, 70%, 70% and 55% for CTX, P1NP and osteocalcin, respectively, whereas additive genetic factors explained 7%, 13% and 45% of the variation in CTX, P1NP and osteocalcin. Conclusions: Bone turnover markers were not associated with baseline plasma glucose levels and did not predict changes in glucose homeostasis. Variation in bone turnover markers is mainly explained by environmental factors, however, compared to CTX and P1NP, genetic factors have a larger impact on osteocalcin levels.

The lateralized ERP N2pc component has been shown to be an effective marker of attentional object selection when elicited in a visual search task, specifically reflecting the selection of a target item among distractors. Moreover, when targets are known in advance, the visual search process is guided by representations of target features held in working memory at the time of search, thus guiding attention to objects with target-matching features. Previous studies have shown that manipulating working memory availability via concurrent tasks or within task manipulations influences visual search performance and the N2pc. Other studies have indicated that visual (non-spatial) vs. spatial working memory manipulations have differential contributions to visual search. To investigate this the current study assesses participants' visual and spatial working memory ability independent of the visual search task to determine whether such individual differences in working memory affect task performance and the N2pc. Participants (n = 205) completed a visual search task to elicit the N2pc and separate visual working memory (VWM) and spatial working memory (SPWM) assessments. Greater SPWM, but not VWM, ability is correlated with and predicts higher visual search accuracy and greater N2pc amplitudes. Neither VWM nor SPWM was related to N2pc latency. These results provide additional support to prior behavioral and neural visual search findings that spatial WM availability, whether as an ability of the participant's processing system or based on task demands, plays an important role in efficient visual search.

Objectives: To study Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibody patterns in twin individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and their healthy co-twins, and to determine the heritability of antibody responses against the EBV encoded EBNA1 protein.Methods: Isotypes of EBNA1 antibodies were measured in 137 RA affected- and 150 healthy twin pairs. We estimated the effect of RA and RA predisposition, anti-citrullinated antibodies (ACPA), IgM rheumatoid factor (RF), the shared epitope (SE) and the PTPN22-T allele (PTPN22) on the level of EBNA1 antibodies. We also determined the heritability of EBNA1 antibody levels.Results: IgA-EBNA1 antibody levels were increased in twins from RA discordant twin pairs irrespective of RA, ACPA or IgM-RF status. The IgG-EBNA1 antibody level was elevated in healthy co-twins from RA discordant twin pairs but not in RA affected twins. The IgM-EBNA1 antibody level was elevated in both RA twins and their healthy co-twins. The effect of RA on the IgA-EBNA1 antibody level was reversed when SE was present and with no effect of PTPN22. The heritability of IgA-, IgG- and IgM-EBNA1 antibody level was 40.6, 65.5, and 54.3%, with no effect of environment shared by the twins.Conclusion: EBNA1 antibody levels are distinctively different between patients with RA and healthy subjects but also between relatives of RA strongly predisposed to RA and healthy subjects. The high level of IgA EBNA1 antibodies associated with RA and a family predisposition to RA is attributable to both genetics incl. the shared epitope and environmental variation.

Purpose: In previous smaller studies, associations were demonstrated between diabetic retinopathy (DR) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), but longitudinal relationships have not been evaluated in larger cohorts. The aim of the present study was to assess the cross-sectional and prospective associations between DR and OSA in a national cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes. Design: Cross-sectional and 5-year longitudinal registry-based cohort study. Participants: For cases, we included 153 238 patients with type 2 diabetes who had attended diabetic eye screening and were registered in the Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy (DiaBase). Each of these were matched by 5 control participants without diabetes of the same age and gender (n = 746 148). Methods: Exposure and outcome data as well as systemic morbidity and use of medications were identified in national registers, including the DiaBase, the Danish National Patient Register, the Danish National Prescription Registry, and the Danish Civil Registration System. The index date was defined as the date of the first DR screening registered in DiaBase. Main Outcome Measures: Exposure was defined as present and level-specific DR, and main outcomes were crude, age- and gender-adjusted, and multivariable adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for prevalent OSA as well as hazard ratios (HR) for 5-year incident OSA and DR. Results: Patients with type 2 diabetes independently were more likely to have prevalent OSA (OR, 2.01; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.95–2.08) and to develop OSA within 5 years (HR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.46–1.64). Patients with type 2 diabetes and DR at baseline were less likely to have prevalent OSA (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.52–0.62) or to demonstrate incident OSA (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.74–0.99). Likewise, patients with OSA had a lower risk to develop DR (HR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.74–0.92). Conclusions: In a registry-based national cohort study, patients with type 2 diabetes had a higher risk of OSA. However, a 43% decreased risk of prevalent OSA was demonstrated in patients with DR, and prospectively, OSA and DR both were related inversely with each other.

Recent genome-wide association (GWA) studies described 95 loci controlling serum lipid levels. These common variants explain ∼25% of the heritability of the phenotypes. To date, no unbiased screen for gene-environment interactions for circulating lipids has been reported. We screened for variants that modify the relationship between known epidemiological risk factors and circulating lipid levels in a meta-analysis of genome-wide association (GWA) data from 18 population-based cohorts with European ancestry (maximum N = 32,225). We collected 8 further cohorts (N = 17,102) for replication, and rs6448771 on 4p15 demonstrated genome-wide significant interaction with waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR) on total cholesterol (TC) with a combined P-value of 4.79×10(-9). There were two potential candidate genes in the region, PCDH7 and CCKAR, with differential expression levels for rs6448771 genotypes in adipose tissue. The effect of WHR on TC was strongest for individuals carrying two copies of G allele, for whom a one standard deviation (sd) difference in WHR corresponds to 0.19 sd difference in TC concentration, while for A allele homozygous the difference was 0.12 sd. Our findings may open up possibilities for targeted intervention strategies for people characterized by specific genomic profiles. However, more refined measures of both body-fat distribution and metabolic measures are needed to understand how their joint dynamics are modified by the newly found locus.

Abstract Background The comparison of traits in twins from opposite-sex (OS) and same-sex (SS) dizygotic twin pairs is considered a proxy measure of prenatal hormone exposure. To examine possible prenatal hormonal influences on anthropometric traits, we compared mean height, body mass index (BMI), and the prevalence of being overweight or obese between men and women from OS and SS dizygotic twin pairs. Methods The data were derived from the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) database, and included 68,494 SS and 53,808 OS dizygotic twin individuals above the age of 20 years from 31 twin cohorts representing 19 countries. Zygosity was determined by questionnaires or DNA genotyping depending on the study. Multiple regression and logistic regression models adjusted for cohort, age, and birth year with the twin type as a predictor were carried out to compare height and BMI in twins from OS pairs with those from SS pairs and to calculate the adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for being overweight or obese. Results OS females were, on average, 0.31 cm (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.20, 0.41) taller than SS females. OS males were also, on average, taller than SS males, but this difference was only 0.14 cm (95% CI 0.02, 0.27). Mean BMI and the prevalence of overweight or obesity did not differ between males and females from SS and OS twin pairs. The statistically significant differences between OS and SS twins for height were small and appeared to reflect our large sample size rather than meaningful differences of public health relevance. Conclusions We found no evidence to support the hypothesis that prenatal hormonal exposure or postnatal socialization (i.e., having grown up with a twin of the opposite sex) has a major impact on height and BMI in adulthood.

Abstract Epidemiological studies of the uncommon disorder neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) may be difficult to interpret because of the evolving nature of diagnostic criteria, differences in the definition and accuracy of NMOSD diagnosis, the completeness of case ascertainment, and variability in assays for the disease‐specific biomarker aquaporin‐4 (AQP4)‐IgG. A sub‐group of patients with the clinical syndrome NMOSD lack detectable AQP4‐IgG and in these cases an accurate diagnosis requires precise diagnostic algorithms and longitudinal follow‐up. Consecutive sets of criteria for NMO/NMOSD have been introduced during the two last decades. Such criteria need validation in different populations. Detection of other autoantibodies, such as IgG specific for myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein or for glial fibrillary acidic protein in a sub‐group of AQP4‐IgG–negative NMOSD patients, has improved over the past decade and may lead to overlap of the clinical syndromes/phenotypes. This review begins by summarizing current knowledge on the widening clinical spectrum of NMOSD. Subsequently, we describe two epidemiological studies from Denmark carried out in two different decades (1998–2008 and 2007–2014) and comment on the differences in study design, patient ascertainment, and interpretation of results. These factors may explain some of the observed differences, reflecting the complexity and providing a clear example of this development.

Human height variation is determined by genetic and environmental factors, but it remains unclear whether their influences differ across birth-year cohorts. We conducted an individual-based pooled analysis of 40 twin cohorts including 143,390 complete twin pairs born 1886–1994. Although genetic variance showed a generally increasing trend across the birth-year cohorts, heritability estimates (0.69-0.84 in men and 0.53-0.78 in women) did not present any clear pattern of secular changes. Comparing geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia), total height variance was greatest in North America and Australia and lowest in East Asia, but no clear pattern in the heritability estimates across the birth-year cohorts emerged. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that heritability of height is lower in populations with low living standards than in affluent populations, nor that heritability of height will increase within a population as living standards improve.

Background: Based on animal studies, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been suggested to lower the risk of obesity and inflammation. We aimed to investigate if, among humans, intake of n-3 PUFAs was associated with i) total body fat, ii) body fat distribution and iii) obesity-related inflammatory markers. Methods: The study population consisted of 1,212 healthy individuals with information on habitual food intake from food frequency questionnaires, six different measures of body fat, and levels of six circulating inflammatory markers. Multiple linear regression analysis of intakes of PUFAs in relation to outcomes were performed and adjusted for potential confounders. Results: Absolute n-3 PUFA intake, but not n-3/n-6, was inversely associated with the different measures of body fat. Among n-3 PUFA derivatives, only α-linolenic acid (ALA) was inversely associated with body fat measures. No significant interactions with the dietary macronutrient composition were observed. Pro-inflammatory cytokines were not associated with absolute PUFA intake, but the macrophage inflammatory protein-1α (MIP-1α) was associated with the n-3/n-6 ratio. Conclusion: In humans, intake of n-3 PUFAs, in particular ALA, is beneficially associated with body fatness. The favourable association is, however, not reflected in systemic levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, nor is it influenced by macronutrients in the diet.