Publications by authors named "Ahrens W"

Background: Wearable technologies have the potential to support health promotion and disease prevention. However, it remains unclear how the role of social determinants of health (SDoH) and digital determinants of health (DDoH) plays in this context.

Objective: This study investigates differences in sociodemographic factors and digital health literacy between wearable users and non-users, whether the association with wearable use varies across age groups and its potential mediator.

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It remains unclear how serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations relate to childhood bone health. We hypothesized that 25(OH)D was inversely associated with bone turnover biomarkers and positively associated with bone stiffness. Cross-sectional analyses were performed using data from participants (2-15-year-old, 51% boys) from the Identification and Prevention of Dietary- and Lifestyle-induced Health Effects in Children and Infants Study (IDEFICS)/I.

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Purpose: It is assumed that sensory taste perception shapes food choices and impacts dietary intake. However, this has rarely been studied in free living subjects of different age-groups with standardised methods. The present study investigated the association of the ability to rank sweet and fat taste intensities with consumption frequency of sweet and fatty foods in children, adolescents and adults from eight European countries.

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Unlabelled: Physical activity measured by accelerometry (PA-accelerometry) is used as an indicator of physical capacity in chronic diseases. Currently, only fragmented age ranges of reference percentile curves are available for European children and adolescents. This study aimed to provide age- and sex-specific percentiles for physical activity measured by hip-worn accelerometry derived throughout the full age range of European children and adolescents.

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In this multi-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS) and fine mapping study of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) subsites, we analysed 19,073 cases and 38,857 controls and identified 29 independent novel loci. We provide robust evidence that a 3' UTR variant in (rs78378222, T>G) confers a 40% reduction in odds of developing overall HNSCC. We further examine the gene-environment relationship of and variants demonstrating their effects act through both smoking and alcohol use.

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In this report, we present a progressively enlarging, degenerative, intraspongious/intravertebral herniated nucleus pulposus, also referred to as a "Schmorl's node," in a 65-year-old patient with a history of prostate cancer. The patient initially presented to our orthopedic oncology clinic for the evaluation of lytic-appearing lesions involving the L4 and L5 vertebral bodies. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer approximately four years prior and had been previously treated with prostatectomy.

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Background: Increased lung-cancer risks for low socioeconomic status (SES) groups are only partially attributable to smoking habits. Little effort has been made to investigate the persistent risks related to low SES by quantification of potential biases.

Methods: Based on 12 case-control studies, including 18 centers of the international SYNERGY project (16,550 cases, 20,147 controls), we estimated controlled direct effects (CDE) of SES on lung cancer via multiple logistic regression, adjusted for age, study center, and smoking habits, and stratified by sex.

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Little is known about the aetiology of thymoma. This study aims to identify medical risk factors for thymoma as a systematic approach to new hypotheses on the aetiology of this disease. A European multi-centre case-control study was conducted from 1995 to 1997, including incident cases aged 35-69 years with thymoma.

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HPV-positive and HPV-negative head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are recognized as distinct entities. There remains uncertainty surrounding the causal effects of smoking and alcohol on the development of these two cancer types. Here we perform multivariable Mendelian randomization (MR) to evaluate the causal effects of smoking and alcohol on the risk of HPV-positive and HPV-negative HNSCC in 3431 cases and 3469 controls.

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Background: A liquid biopsy is a test that evaluates the status of a disease by analyzing a sample of bodily fluid, most commonly blood. In recent years, there has been progress in the development and clinical application of liquid biopsy methods to identify blood-based, tumor-specific biomarkers for many cancer types. However, the implementation of these technologies to aid in the treatment of patients who have a sarcoma remains behind other fields of cancer medicine.

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Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) incidence is on the rise, often diagnosed at late stage and associated with poor prognoses. Risk prediction tools have a potential role in prevention and early detection.

Methods: The IARC-ARCAGE European case-control study was used as the model development dataset.

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Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) represents the most common inflammatory neurological disease causing disability in early adulthood. Childhood and adolescence factors might be of relevance in the development of MS. We aimed to investigate the association between various factors (e.

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Objective: To determine the association between personality characteristics and use of different cancer screenings.

Methods: We used data from the German National Cohort (NAKO; mean age was 53.0 years (SD: 9.

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Background: Obesity is a worldwide health problem. We conducted detailed analyses of anthropometric measures in a comprehensive, population-based, current cohort in Germany.

Methods: In the German National Cohort (NAKO), we analyzed cross-sectional data on body mass index (BMI), waist and hip circumference, subcutaneous (SAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) as measured by ultrasound, and body fat percentage.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study assessed how different dimensions of the quantitative job-exposure matrix (SYN-JEM) impact the correlation between silica exposure and lung cancer risk, using data from 16,901 lung cancer cases and 20,965 controls from global studies.
  • The analysis revealed that including all dimensions of SYN-JEM resulted in the best fit for predicting lung cancer odds, while omitting job-specific estimates led to a poor model fit.
  • The findings suggest that to accurately model the exposure-response relationship between silica and lung cancer, it’s crucial to use all relevant factors, including job specifics, time, and region in the analysis.
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Introduction: Isolated case reports and case series have linked the use of sevelamer to severe gastrointestinal (GI) inflammation and perforation among patients with end-stage renal disease.

Methods: In this study, we identified 12 cases of biopsy-proven sevelamer-induced gastrointestinal disease from a large urban community hospital over the course of 5 years. We described baseline characteristics, sites and types of injury, histological findings, timing and dosing of sevelamer initiation compared with symptom onset, and in a smaller subset, endoscopic resolution post drug cessation.

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Background: While much research has been done to identify individual workplace lung carcinogens, little is known about joint effects on risk when workers are exposed to multiple agents.

Objectives: We investigated the pairwise joint effects of occupational exposures to asbestos, respirable crystalline silica, metals (i.e.

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Background: Worldwide, lung cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. The present study explored associations between occupational exposures that are prevalent among women, and lung cancer.

Methods: Data from 10 case-control studies of lung cancer from Europe, Canada, and New Zealand conducted between 1988 and 2008 were combined.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study wanted to see if feeling good (psychosocial well-being) or being impulsive about emotions is better at helping teens choose healthier foods.
  • Researchers looked at data from over 2,000 European teens, asking about their food choices and feelings.
  • They found that working on controlling impulsive feelings might help teens eat less sugary and fatty foods more than just focusing on feeling good.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to assess how behavioral risk factors for obesity develop from childhood to adolescence and how they relate to BMI across different European regions.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from over 14,000 participants, observing that changes in risk factors like diet and physical activity occurred similarly across regions, but differed in how they related to BMI as children aged.
  • - Key findings indicated that by age 11, consuming sugary foods and having active lifestyles were linked to lower BMI, while increased media use was associated with higher BMI; these links became more apparent as children grew older.
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Dietary diversity (DD) plays a crucial role in fostering high-quality diets, but its association with health outcomes, particularly body adiposity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), is inconsistent. This may be due to a lack of a standardized method for estimating DD. Our study investigates the association between two DD indices, namely the dietary diversity score (DDS) and food variety score (FVS), and anthropometric measures, biochemical parameters, and diet quality in a large population sample from the I.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A new metadata schema assessed the public availability of chronic disease outcome metadata (CDOM) from German studies, revealing only 6 out of 16 had full public access.
  • * Challenges identified include lack of resources for researchers to comply with FAIR principles, emphasizing the need for better searchable platforms for CDOM to enhance accessibility.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to establish specific reference percentiles for ferritin and transferrin levels in European children aged 3-15 years, as no such values previously existed.
  • - Data collected from 3390 ferritin and 3416 transferrin measurements were analyzed, showing that iron deficiency affected 3% of children initially and 7% after six years, along with findings that higher heme iron intake is linked to increased ferritin levels.
  • - The results indicated that following a mainly vegetarian diet was associated with a lower likelihood of having sufficient serum ferritin levels, emphasizing the importance of dietary iron sources for children's iron status.
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To explore the age-dependent associations between 26 risk factors and BMI in early life, and differences by parental educational level. Data of 10,310 children (24,155 measurements) aged 2-16 years participating in a multi-centre European cohort from 2007 to 2014 were utilized. Trajectories of overweight/obesity risk factors and their age-specific associations with BMI were estimated using polynomial mixed-effects models.

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