Publications by authors named "Alfredo Gea"

Background: Binge drinking has been associated with higher risks of adverse physical health outcomes. Motivations behind binge drinking may involve seeking pleasure and social connectedness, which are important aspects of life that constitute well-being. However, studies that apply a holistic framework of well-being to understand binge drinking remain limited, especially in non-English speaking populations.

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  • The study investigates the prevalence of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction (CAD) in hospitalized patients with bacterial infections, noting that previous research indicated issues mainly in viral infections.
  • Fifty participants were enrolled, with cardiovascular function assessed at the start and after 6 weeks to determine changes in autonomic responses.
  • Results showed that patients with bacterial infections had significantly lower heart rate variability (HRV) compared to healthy participants, indicating a higher prevalence of CAD in the infection group throughout the study period.
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Tobacco and alcohol co-use are two major lifestyle modifiable risk factors. Understanding the determinants of both behaviors helps to develop interventions to prevent these exposures. However, previous studies have focused on predictors of individual tobacco or alcohol use.

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Objective: Medical education should enhance empathy. We examined, using self-assessment instruments and standardized patients (SPs), the impact on empathy, of a multi-year intervention (years 4-6 of medical training) that uses reflective learning approaches.

Methods: 241 final-year medical students participated; 110 from the 2018 graduation class (non-intervention group) and 131 from the 2019 graduation class (intervention group).

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Objective: To evaluate the effect of replacing 1 h/week of watching television with 1 h/week of light to moderate (LMPA) or vigorous physical activity (VPA) before and during pregnancy on the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

Methods: A case-control study was conducted in pregnant women. Physical activity and television watching before and during pregnancy were assessed using the Paffenbarger Physical Activity Questionnaire.

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During a bacterial infection, individuals may present with behavioral changes referred to as sickness behavior, which has been suggested is induced by the inflammatory markers that are released because of the infective immunological challenge. However, few studies have explored this multidimensional phenomenon in naturally occurring conditions. A longitudinal observational study was conducted to explore the role of inflammatory cytokines in mediating the sickness behavior during a bacterial infection.

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Background: Binge-drinking is one of the alcohol drinking patterns with the worst health consequences. Nonetheless, binge-drinking is highly prevalent. The perceived benefits that motivate it are ultimately related to subjective well-being.

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Alcohol drinking patterns may determine the risk of hypertension and may also modify the detrimental effect of high alcohol intake. We prospectively evaluated the effect of the Mediterranean alcohol-drinking pattern and its interaction with the amount of alcohol consumed on the incidence of arterial hypertension. In the “Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra” (SUN) cohort, we followed-up 13,805 participants, all of them initially free of hypertension, during a maximum period of 16 years.

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  • Medical students need effective learning strategies as university content increases, and adopting a Deep Approach (DA) and Self-Regulation (SR) can enhance student success.
  • A study at the University of Navarre analyzed responses from 155 third-year students, revealing that above-average students tended to favor DA over Surface Approach (SA) and scored higher in SR skills.
  • The findings suggest that curricula should be designed to promote DA and SR, encouraging a focus on understanding material rather than mere memorization.
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Background: Most of the available epidemiological evidence on alcohol and chronic disease agrees on recommending alcohol abstention to young people, but some controversy exists about the most appropriate recommendation for alcohol abstention for people of older ages. A growing body of evidence suggests that the pattern of alcohol consumption is likely to be a strong effect modifier. The Mediterranean Alcohol Drinking Pattern (MADP) represents a score integrating several dimensions of drinking patterns (moderation, preference for red wine, drinking with meals, and avoiding binge drinking).

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Several studies have tried to analyse the association between all-cause mortality and different risk factors, (especially those which are modifiable, such as smoking, diet or exercise), to develop public health preventive strategies. However, a specific analysis of predictors of premature and late mortality is needed to give more precise recommendations. Considering that there are risk factors which exert an influence on some diseases and not on others, we expect that, similarly, they may have a different impact depending on the timing of mortality, separating premature (≤65 years) from late mortality (>65 years).

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Background And Objectives: Empathy is considered a prerequisite for a successful physician-patient relationship. The Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE) is a regularly-used, patient-rated measure of physician empathy. The aim of this study is to translate and analyze the reliability and validity of the JSPPPE Spanish (Spain) version (Sp-JSPPPE) in primary care in order to use it with medical trainees.

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Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) worsens quality of life and increases mortality. Dissatisfaction with weight in patients with MetS may modify the effect of lifestyle interventions to achieve changes in health-related behaviors.

Objective: To assess 1-year changes in cardiovascular risk scores, self-perceived general health and health-related behaviors according to observed changes in desired weight loss during the first year of intervention in a large cardiovascular prevention trial.

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Objective: To examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal (2-year follow-up) associations between dietary diversity (DD) and depressive symptoms.

Design: An energy-adjusted dietary diversity score (DDS) was assessed using a validated FFQ and was categorised into quartiles (Q). The variety in each food group was classified into four categories of diversity (C).

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The aim of the study was to investigate the association between pre-gestational carbohydrate quality index (CQI) and the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Data from the 'Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra' (SUN) cohort were used, which includes 3827 women who notified at least one pregnancy between December 1999 and December 2019. We used a validated semi-quantitative 136-item FFQ to evaluate dietary exposures at baseline and at 10-year follow-up.

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This review discusses the inconsistent recommendations on alcohol consumption and its association with chronic disease, highlighting the need for an evidence-based consensus. Alcohol is an addictive substance consumed worldwide, especially in European countries. Recommendations on alcohol consumption are controversial.

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Adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet has been customarily assessed with the Mediterranean diet score (MDS or Trichopolou Index), with values of 0 or 1 assigned to each of the nine elements, and with the use of the sex-specific median as the cutoff. The value of persons whose consumption of the six beneficial items (ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fatty acids, vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, cereal, and fish) is at or above the median and is assigned a value of 1. Otherwise they receive 0 points.

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We assessed the association of tobacco use or smoking cessation with depression risk and determined if the presence of a depressive disorder was associated with smoking onset. We conducted a prospective cohort study (SUN Project) based on 16,519 Spanish university graduates without depression at baseline. Tobacco use was determined at baseline and after four years of follow-up.

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Background: Myopia is a highly prevalent disorder, and one of the first causes of blindness. In turn, alcohol consumption has been shown to be a risk factor for many diseases and a main contributor to the global burden of disease. However, no studies have investigated the relationship between alcohol intake and myopia.

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The burden of depression is increasing worldwide, specifically in older adults. Unhealthy dietary patterns may partly explain this phenomenon. In the Spanish PREDIMED-Plus study, we explored (1) the cross-sectional association between the adherence to the Prime Diet Quality Score (PDQS), an a priori-defined high-quality food pattern, and the prevalence of depressive symptoms at baseline (cross-sectional analysis) and (2) the prospective association of baseline PDQS with changes in depressive symptomatology after 2 years of follow-up.

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Overweight and obesity are growing worldwide and strongly associated with hypertension. The Clínica Universidad de Navarra-Body Adiposity Estimator (CUN-BAE) index is proposed as an optimal indicator of body fatness. We aimed to investigate the association of body fat as captured by the CUN-BAE index with incident hypertension in a Mediterranean population.

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Introduction And Objectives: Quantification of cardiovascular risk has been based on scores such as Framingham, Framingham-REGICOR, SCORE or Life's Simple 7 (LS7). In vitro, animal, and randomized clinical studies have shown that polyphenols may provide benefits to the vascular system and reduce the inflammatory response. However, some clinical-epidemiological studies have yielded inconsistent results.

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Which intensity of physical activity (PA) is associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) prevention remains unclear. Isotemporal substitution models assess the relationship of replacing the amount of time spent in one activity for another. We aimed to assess T2D incidence associated with light-to-moderate physical activity (LMPA) and vigorous physical activity (VPA) using isotemporal substitution models of one hour (1 h) sitting by 1 h of LMPA or VPA.

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