Publications by authors named "Annette Peters"

The detection of norm deviations is fundamental to clinical decision making and impacts our ability to diagnose and treat diseases effectively. Current normative modeling approaches rely on generic comparisons and quantify deviations in relation to the population average. However, generic models interpolate subtle nuances and risk the loss of critical information, thereby compromising effective personalization of health care strategies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Some studies have revealed various sleep patterns in adolescents and adults using multidimensional objective sleep parameters. However, it remains unknown whether these patterns are consistent from adolescence to young adulthood and how they relate to long-term obesity.

Methods: Seven-day accelerometry was conducted in German Infant Study on the influence of Nutrition Intervention PLUS environmental and genetic influences on allergy development (GINIplus) and Influence of Lifestyle factors on the development of the Immune System and Allergies in East and West Germany (LISA) birth cohorts during the 15-year and 20-year follow-ups, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: For characterizing health states, fat distribution is more informative than overall body size. We used population-based whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify distinct body composition subphenotypes and characterize associations with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk.

Methods: Bone marrow, visceral, subcutaneous, cardiac, renal, hepatic, skeletal muscle and pancreatic adipose tissue were measured by MRI in n = 299 individuals from the population-based KORA cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Little is known about the association between air pollution and self-perceived health (including both health-related quality of life [HRQoL] and self-rated health [SRH]). The aim of this study was therefore to explore whether long-term air pollution exposure is associated with worse self-perceived health, as measured by different tools.

Methods: We used a land-use regression model to determine the annual average levels of particulate matter with a diameter <10 μm (PM), coarse particles (PM), fine particles (PM), fine particle absorbances (PM), particle number concentration (PNC), ozone (O), nitrogen dioxide (NO), and nitrogen oxide (NO) for geocoded residential addresses (2014-2015).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In contemporary healthcare, effective risk stratification in the general population is vital amidst rising chronic disease rates and an ageing demographic. Deceleration Capacity of the heart rate (DC), derived from 24-hour Holter electrocardiograms, holds promise in risk stratification for cardiac patients. However, the potential of short-term electrocardiograms of five minutes duration for population screening has not been fully explored.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim was to investigate to what extent cognitive functioning differs by three socioeconomic conditions: low income, being without employment, and living alone. A total of N = 158,144 participants of the population-based German National Cohort (NAKO) provided data on socioeconomic conditions and completed cognitive tests. Multivariable confounder-adjusted regression analyses indicated that cognitive functioning was lower in those with low income (b = -0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Distal sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) is a prevalent neurological condition affecting older adults and those with obesity or diabetes, leading to significant health issues.
  • The Interpretable Multimodal Machine Learning (IMML) framework was used to predict the prevalence and incidence of DSPN by analyzing a diverse set of data from over 1,000 participants, including clinical, genomic, and metabolomic information.
  • Results showed that while clinical data alone could differentiate DSPN cases, combining it with additional molecular data improved prediction accuracy and identified potential biomarkers related to inflammation and fatty acid metabolism, offering new insights for treatment and prevention strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Iron homoeostasis is tightly regulated, with hepcidin and soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) playing significant roles. However, the genetic determinants of these traits and the biomedical consequences of iron homoeostasis variation are unclear. In a meta-analysis of 12 cohorts involving 91,675 participants, we found 43 genomic loci associated with either hepcidin or sTfR concentration, of which 15 previously unreported.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Frailty, resilience and intrinsic capacity (IC) are concepts to evaluate older person`s health status, but no comparison of their associations with adverse health outcomes exists. We therefore aimed to assess which concept is most useful for determining long-term health of older adults.

Methods: Analyses were based on the KORA (Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg)-Age study (n = 940, 65-93 years).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • MRI can identify key biomarkers like bone marrow fat-fraction (BMFF), skeletal muscle fat-fraction (SMFF), and total adipose tissue (TAT) to assess conditions related to osteosarcopenic adiposity (OSA) in individuals.
  • In a study with 363 participants, 81 (22.3%) were classified with OSA, characterized by older age, higher SMFF levels, and greater body mass index (BMI).
  • The OSA subgroup also showed the highest prevalence of health issues such as impaired glucose tolerance, high blood pressure, higher cholesterol levels, and liver fat accumulation, suggesting the importance of MRI in monitoring these health risks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) is the natural process of creating tiny particles (sub-10 nm) from gases, observed globally in various environments.
  • Although these particles impact total and ultrafine particle concentrations, there is limited research on their health effects largely due to a lack of specific identifiers in existing data.
  • This study introduces an automated machine learning algorithm that identifies NPF events from particle data across 65 global measurement sites from 1996 to 2023, facilitating future research on NPF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Sex differences exist in type 2 diabetes (T2D), and androgens have been implicated in the etiology of T2D in a sex-specific manner. We therefore aimed to investigate whether androgens play a role in explaining sex differences in glucose homeostasis and incidence of T2D.

Methods: We used observational data from the German population-based KORA F4 study (n = 1975, mean age: 54 years, 41% women) and its follow-up examination KORA FF4 (median follow-up 6.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates the link between an epigenetic risk score (ERS) related to alcohol consumption and blood pressure traits, finding significant associations between higher ERS and increased blood pressure levels among participants.
  • In the analysis of 3,898 individuals from the Framingham Heart Study, each unit increase in the ERS correlated with a rise in systolic blood pressure (SBP) by almost 2 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by about 0.68 mm Hg.
  • The research suggests that the ERS could serve as a useful tool for assessing cardiovascular risks linked to alcohol consumption, especially in cases where self-reported data may be unreliable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: A data-driven cluster analysis in a cohort of European individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) has previously identified four subgroups based on clinical characteristics. In the current study, we performed a comprehensive statistical assessment to (1) replicate the above-mentioned original clusters; (2) derive de novo T2D subphenotypes in the Kooperative Gesundheitsforschung in der Region Augsburg (KORA) cohort and (3) describe underlying genetic risk and diabetes complications.

Methods: We used data from n = 301 individuals with T2D from KORA FF4 study (Southern Germany).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

First small sample studies indicate that disturbances of spinal morphology may impair craniospinal flow of cerebrospinal fluid and result in neurodegeneration. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of cervical spinal canal width and scoliosis with grey matter, white matter, ventricular and white matter hyperintensity volumes of the brain in a large study sample. Four hundred participants underwent whole-body 3 T magnetic resonance imaging.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Molecular analytics increasingly utilize machine learning (ML) for predictive modeling based on data acquired through molecular profiling technologies. However, developing robust models that accurately capture physiological phenotypes is challenged by the dynamics inherent to biological systems, variability stemming from analytical procedures, and the resource-intensive nature of obtaining sufficiently representative datasets. Here, we propose and evaluate a new method: Contextual Out-of-Distribution Integration (CODI).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity are linked to low levels of natriuretic peptide (NP) and reduced NP guanylyl cyclase receptor-A (GCA) in muscles and fat tissue.
  • Research in mice shows that lack of ANP/GCA leads to metabolic issues and prediabetes, causing insulin resistance and poor endurance.
  • ANP/GCA is crucial for maintaining mitochondrial function and oxidative capacity in skeletal muscle, suggesting it plays a key role in the development of prediabetes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to studies on how it affected people's mental health, with mixed results; some felt worse, while others stayed stable.
  • The study focused on 135,445 people in Germany to see how age and past mental health issues affected depression and anxiety during the early pandemic.
  • Results showed people with past mental health problems felt the same after the pandemic began, but younger folks without those issues felt worse, highlighting the need for better support strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The long-term health impacts of playing professional football (soccer) are gaining attention, particularly concerning brain health, but cardiovascular, metabolic diseases, and cancer also need to be studied.
  • A new project called 'SoccHealth' is being conducted as part of Germany’s largest cohort study, NAKO, examining the health of 348 former professional football players aged 40-69.
  • This project aims to provide insights into the long-term health effects of football by comparing the football players' health data with general population controls, using a consistent examination protocol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rising temperatures affect human behavior and risk-taking in several domains. However, it is not yet well understood just how ambient temperature shapes risk attitudes. Using data from the large population-based KORA-Fit study (Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg) of older people (N=2454), we identify a statistically significant, but very small, positive association between short-term ambient temperature changes and individuals' general willingness to take risks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) is associated with cardiometabolic disease; however, its role in subclinical stages of disease development is unclear. Thus, we aimed to explore this association in a cross-sectional analysis, with cardiometabolic phenotypes derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Phenotypes of the left (LV) and right cardiac ventricle, whole-body adipose tissue (AT), and organ-specific AT were obtained by MRI in 400 participants of the KORA cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Aims: Understanding molecular processes of the early phase of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease conditions is of utmost importance for early prediction and intervention measures.

Methods: We measured 92 cardiovascular-disease-related proteins (Olink, Cardiovascular III) in 2024 elderly participants of the population-based LIFE-Adult study. We analysed the impact of 27 covariables on these proteins including blood counts, cardiovascular risk factors and life-style-related parameters.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Protein biomarkers may contribute to the identification of vulnerable subgroups for premature mortality. This study aimed to investigate the association of plasma proteins with all-cause and cause-specific mortality among individuals with and without baseline type 2 diabetes (T2D) and evaluate their impact on the prediction of all-cause mortality in two prospective Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) studies.

Methods: The discovery cohort comprised 1545 participants (median follow-up 15.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction/objectives: Changes in the stool metabolome have been poorly studied in the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Moreover, few studies have explored the relationship of stool metabolites with circulating metabolites. Here, we investigated the associations between stool and blood metabolites, the MetS and systemic inflammation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Evidence suggests that air pollution modifies the association between heat and mortality. However, most studies have been conducted in cities without rural data. This time-series study examined potential effect modification of particulate matter (PM) and ozone (O) on heat-related mortality using small-area data from five European countries, and explored the influence of area characteristics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF