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Background: Wide phthalate exposure has been associated with both declines in renal function and an elevated risk of mortality. Whether phthalate-associated risk of premature mortality differs by renal function status remains unclear. Methods: This study included 9605 adults from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Urinary concentrations of 11 phthalate metabolites were assessed using high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. According to estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), participants were grouped as having normal or modestly declined renal functions, or chronic kidney disease (CKD). Multivariable Cox regression models estimated all-cause mortality associated with phthalate exposure, overall and by renal function status. Results: Overall, Mono-n-butyl phthalate (MnBP), Mono-benzyl phthalate (MBzP), Mono-(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (MEHHP) and Mono-(2-ethyl-5-carbox-ypentyl) phthalate (MECPP) were associated with an elevated risk of mortality (P-trend across tertile

Abstract Background Changes in body composition and systemic inflammation are important characteristics of cancer cachexia. This multi‐centre retrospective study aimed to explore the prognostic value of the combination of body composition and systemic inflammation in patients with cancer cachexia. Methods The modified advanced lung cancer inflammation index (mALI), which combines body composition and systemic inflammation, was defined as appendicular skeletal muscle index (ASMI) × serum albumin/neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio. The ASMI was estimated according to a previously validated anthropometric equation. Restricted cubic splines were used to evaluate the relationship between mALI and all‐cause mortality in patients with cancer cachexia. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression analysis were used to evaluate the prognostic value of mALI in cancer cachexia. A receiver operator characteristic curve was used to compare the effectiveness of mALI and nutritional inflammatory indicators in predicting all‐cause mortality in patients with cancer cachexia. Results A total of 2438 patients with cancer cachexia were enrolled, including 1431 males and 1007 females. The sex‐specific optimal cut‐off values of mALI for males and females were 7.12 and 6.52, respectively. There was a non‐linear relationship between mALI and all‐cause mortality in patients with cancer cachexia. Low mALI was significantly associated with poor nutritional status, high tumour burden, and high inflammation. Patients with low mALI had significantly lower overall survival (OS) than those with high mALI (39.5% vs. 65.5%, P

Clarifying how increased atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) contributes to accelerated land carbon sequestration remains important since this process is the largest negative feedback in the coupled carbon–climate system. Here, we constrain the sensitivity of the terrestrial carbon sink to eCO2 over the temperate Northern Hemisphere for the past five decades, using 12 terrestrial ecosystem models and data from seven CO2 enrichment experiments. This constraint uses the heuristic finding that the northern temperate carbon sink sensitivity to eCO2 is linearly related to the site-scale sensitivity across the models. The emerging data-constrained eCO2 sensitivity is 0.64 ± 0.28 PgC yr−1 per hundred ppm of eCO2. Extrapolating worldwide, this northern temperate sensitivity projects the global terrestrial carbon sink to increase by 3.5 ± 1.9 PgC yr−1 for an increase in CO2 of 100 ppm. This value suggests that CO2 fertilization alone explains most of the observed increase in global land carbon sink since the 1960s. More CO2 enrichment experiments, particularly in boreal, arctic and tropical ecosystems, are required to explain further the responsible processes.

Abstract The Naples prognostic score (NPS) is an effective inflammatory and nutritional scoring system widely applied as a prognostic factor in various cancers. We aimed to analyze the prognostic value of the NPS in patients diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We prospectively collected 395 patients diagnosed with NSCLC between January 2016 and December 2018 in two university-affiliated hospitals. Patients were divided into three groups according to their pretreatment NPS (Group 0: NPS = 0; Group 1: NPS = 1–2; Group 2: NPS = 3–4). Kaplan–Meier survival curves indicated that patients with higher NPS had a poorer overall survival (OS) and progress-free survival (PFS) (both P

Evaluating the response of the land carbon sink to the anomalies in temperature and drought imposed by El Niño events provides insights into the present-day carbon cycle and its climate-driven variability. It is also a necessary step to build confidence in terrestrial ecosystems models' response to the warming and drying stresses expected in the future over many continents, and particularly in the tropics. Here we present an in-depth analysis of the response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to the 2015/2016 El Niño that imposed extreme warming and dry conditions in the tropics and other sensitive regions. First, we provide a synthesis of the spatio-temporal evolution of anomalies in net land-atmosphere CO2 fluxes estimated by two in situ measurements based on atmospheric inversions and 16 land-surface models (LSMs) from TRENDYv6. Simulated changes in ecosystem productivity, decomposition rates and fire emissions are also investigated. Inversions and LSMs generally agree on the decrease and subsequent recovery of the land sink in response to the onset, peak and demise of El Niño conditions and point to the decreased strength of the land carbon sink: by 0.4-0.7 PgC yr-1 (inversions) and by 1.0 PgC yr-1 (LSMs) during 2015/2016. LSM simulations indicate that a decrease in productivity, rather than increase in respiration, dominated the net biome productivity anomalies in response to ENSO throughout the tropics, mainly associated with prolonged drought conditions.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The impact of the 2015/2016 El Niño on the terrestrial tropical carbon cycle: patterns, mechanisms and implications'.

Abstract Background Completing Patient‐Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG‐SGA) questionnaires is time consuming. This study aimed to develop and validate an easy‐to‐use modified PG‐SGA (mPG‐SGA) for cancer patients. Methods Seventy professionals assessed the content validity, comprehensibility, and difficulty of the full PG‐SGA. A survey including the PG‐SGA and other questionnaires was completed by 34 071 adult hospitalized cancer patients with first cancer diagnosis or recurrent disease with any tumour comorbidities from the INSCOC study. Among them, 1558 patients were followed for 5 years after admission. Reliability and rank correlation were estimated to assess the consistency between PG‐SGA items and to select mPG‐SGA items. The external and internal validity, test–retest reliability, and predictive validity were tested for the mPG‐SGA via comparison with both the PG‐SGA and abridged PG‐SGA (abPG‐SGA). Results After deleting items that more than 50% of professionals considered difficult to evaluate (Worksheet 4) and items with an item‐total correlation