Publications by authors named "Helmer C"

Since the pionneer work of Meerwaldt and the Groningen team, who related skin autofluorescence (SAF) to the dermal concentrations of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), hundreds of articles have been devoted to its application in diabetes. Due to the slow turnover of the AGEs formed on collagen of the skin, the SAF can reflect the progressive accumulation of AGEs and hence be a marker of long-term glucose exposure. Accordingly, relations with HbA1c from the previous 3-10 years have been established in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and even in gestational diabetes mellitus.

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Background: Sexual orientation discrimination increases the risks of negative health outcomes for sexual minorities. Previous studies have found increased rates of eating disorder symptoms in sexual minority individuals, which is attributable to minority stress and discrimination that they experience. Emerging research suggests relationships between sexual orientation discrimination and eating disorder symptoms.

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Background/objectives: A significant proportion of older adults with Alzheimer's disease or related disorders live in a long-term care facility. This study aimed to determine the time delay between admission and death for older adults with dementia.

Methods: A post hoc analysis was conducted using data from a French observational cohort, identifying older adults with dementia who were admitted to nursing homes.

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  • - Glycation is a process where proteins undergo a modification linked to conditions like diabetes, with specific products like glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) being crucial for diabetes management and advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) associated with complications.
  • - The study explores the use of fingernail clippings as a practical and non-invasive method to measure glycation levels over several months, utilizing liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to quantify relevant biomarkers like furosine and AGEs.
  • - Results show a moderate correlation between fingernail furosine levels and HbA1c, suggesting that fingernails can effectively reflect glycation levels similarly to blood tests, supporting their potential use in monitoring diabetes.
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  • The study investigated the link between air pollution and cataract surgery incidence in older adults in Bordeaux, France.
  • Researchers followed 829 participants aged 65 and older from 1999-2017, monitoring their cataract surgeries and estimating their long-term air pollution exposure.
  • Results showed that long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO) at levels ≥40 μg/m was significantly associated with increased incidence of cataract surgery, suggesting that meeting air quality standards could benefit public health.
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Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of weight discrimination (the perception of being treated unfairly based on weight) and its sociodemographic associations among early adolescents aged 10 to 13 in the United States.

Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study in Year Two (2018-2020). Multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted, with perceived weight discrimination as the dependent variable and age, sex, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, body mass index (BMI) category, household income, and highest parental education level as adjusted independent variables.

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Background: Diet is a major route of exposure to potentially neurotoxic chemicals, yet the epidemiological association of diet contaminants with dementia is unknown. We studied the link between dietary exposure to multiple chemicals and dementia risk in older persons, considering interaction with dietary fat content, which may modify the bioavailability and toxicity of (lipophilic) chemicals.

Methods: We included 1,288 non-demented participants from the French Three-City cohort who answered a food frequency questionnaire and 24-hour recall at baseline and were followed for incident dementia.

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Analyzing longitudinal data in health studies is challenging due to sparse and error-prone measurements, strong within-individual correlation, missing data and various trajectory shapes. While mixed-effect models (MM) effectively address these challenges, they remain parametric models and may incur computational costs. In contrast, functional principal component analysis (FPCA) is a non-parametric approach developed for regular and dense functional data that flexibly describes temporal trajectories at a potentially lower computational cost.

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  • * In a cohort of 2505 CKD patients, researchers found that while urea levels did not significantly predict new antidepressant prescriptions, higher urea was linked to worsening depressive symptoms over a 5-year follow-up.
  • * The findings suggest a connection between serum urea levels and depression symptoms, highlighting the need for further research to clarify the mechanisms involved.
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  • Swine influenza A viruses (swIAV) are a significant respiratory disease in pigs, causing economic challenges in pig farming due to ongoing virus transmission and variation.
  • Researchers immunized antibody-positive piglets from an infected herd using a prime-boost vaccination strategy with novel vaccines (a live attenuated influenza virus and a vesicular stomatitis virus-based replicon).
  • These new vaccines significantly reduced virus replication in vaccinated piglets compared to traditional inactivated virus vaccines, potentially helping to control virus spread and improving animal health while lowering the risk of transmission to humans.
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Background: Cognitive screening tools enable the detection of cognitive impairment, facilitate timely intervention, inform clinical care, and allow long-term planning. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment for people with hearing impairment (MoCA-H) was developed as a reliable cognitive screening tool for people with hearing loss. Using the same methodology across four languages, this study examined whether cultural or linguistic factors affect the performance of the MoCA-H.

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Background: The ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE4) plays a role in neurodegeneration and in cardiovascular disease, but findings on its association with mortality are inconsistent. We aimed to examine the association between APOE4 and mortality, and the role of dementia in this association.

Methods: In this pooled analysis, data on White participants aged 45-90 years who underwent APOE genotyping were drawn from two population-based cohorts: the Whitehall II study (UK), which began in 1985 and is ongoing, and the Three-City study (France), initiated in 1999 and ended in 2012.

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Abstract: The utility of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for predicting dementia is debated. We evaluated the added value of repeated brain MRI, including atrophy and cerebral small vessel disease markers, for dementia prediction. We conducted a landmark competing risk analysis in 1716 participants of the French population-based Three-City Study to predict the 5-year risk of dementia using repeated measures of 41 predictors till year 4 of follow-up.

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  • A study involving 5170 older adults aimed to determine if genetic factors influence how lifestyle choices affect the risk of developing dementia.* -
  • Researchers used the Lifestyle for BRAin health risk score (LIBRA) to assess modifiable lifestyle factors, finding that higher scores correlated with increased dementia incidence, regardless of genetic predisposition.* -
  • The results suggest that lifestyle interventions could be beneficial in preventing dementia, regardless of an individual's genetic risk factors like the APOE ε4 allele.*
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Hippocampal neurogenesis (HN) occurs throughout the life course and is important for memory and mood. Declining with age, HN plays a pivotal role in cognitive decline (CD), dementia, and late-life depression, such that altered HN could represent a neurobiological susceptibility to these conditions. Pertinently, dietary patterns (e.

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  • * Neuroimaging reveals that many of these genetic variants have widespread effects on brain regions and are linked to various cancers and specific signaling pathways, such as p53 and Wnt.
  • * The findings suggest a connection between the genes that regulate head size and the likelihood of cancer, emphasizing the need for further research on the implications of this relationship.
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Background: Health-related quality of life (Hr-QoL) scales provide crucial information on neurodegenerative disease progression, help improve patient care and constitute a meaningful endpoint for therapeutic research. However, Hr-QoL progression is usually poorly documented, as for multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and rapidly progressing alpha-synucleinopathy. This work aimed to describe Hr-QoL progression during the natural course of MSA, explore disparities between patients and identify informative items using a four-step statistical strategy.

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Objectives: Early palliative care improves the quality of life of older patients with cancer. This work aimed to analyse the effect of sociodemographic, geriatric, and tumour-related determinants on hospital-based palliative care (HPC) referral in older patients with cancer, taking into account competing risk of death.

Methods: Older adults with diagnosed cancer from 2014 to 2018 according to the general cancer registry of Gironde (French department) were identified in three population-based cohorts on ageing (PAQUID, 3C - Three City, AMI).

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Background: Chronic infectious diseases are increasingly being considered as potential contributors to dementia risk. Among those infections, Helicobacter pylori, the main cause of chronic gastritis worldwide, has been suggested. As the prevalence of H.

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To explore to which extent neurodegeneration and cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) could mediate the association between type-2 diabetes and higher dementia risk. The analytical sample consisted in 2228 participants, out of the Three-City study, aged 65 and older, free of dementia at baseline who underwent brain MRI. Diabetes was defined by medication intake or fasting or non-fasting elevated glucose levels.

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  • The study examined the relationship between omega-3 PUFAs and stroke risk across 29 global cohorts, focusing on total, ischemic, and hemorrhagic strokes.
  • Results showed that higher levels of eicosapentaenoic acid reduced the incidence of total and ischemic strokes by 17% and 18%, respectively, while docosahexaenoic acid also lowered these risks by 12% and 14%.
  • The findings indicate that although higher omega-3 PUFA levels are linked to reduced total and ischemic stroke risks, there is no effect on hemorrhagic strokes.
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Purpose: To investigate the link between lifelong exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods: The Alienor study is a prospective population-based cohort involving 963 residents of Bordeaux, France, older than 73 years. A subset of 614 participants for advanced AMD and 422 participants for early AMD were included in the analysis.

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Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with an elevated risk of neurocognitive disorders (NCDs). It remains unclear whether CKD-related NCDs have a specific cognitive pattern or are earlier-onset phenotypes of the main NCDs (vascular NCDs and Alzheimer's disease).

Methods: We used the Mini Mental State Examination score (MMSE) to assess cognitive patterns in 3003 CKD patients (stage 3-4) followed up over 5 years in the Chronic Kidney Disease-Renal Epidemiology and Information Network (CKD-REIN) cohort.

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