Int J Environ Res Public Health
November 2024
Urban green exercise offers substantial physical and mental health benefits, especially in urban environments with limited natural access. This study analyzes the demand for urban year-round green exercise under various meteorological conditions. Using a primary empirical research design, data were collected from 408 active participants in Germany through an online survey.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Statins are the leading lipid-lowering drugs, reducing blood cholesterol by controlling its synthesis. Side effects are linked to the use of statins, in particular statin-associated muscle symptoms (SAMS). Some data suggest that vitamin D supplementation could reduce SAMS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Statin-associated muscle symptoms (SAMS) are frequently reported. Nevertheless, few data on objective measures of muscle function are available. Recent data suggesting an important nocebo effect with statin use could confound such effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: While some work has been done on Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in statin users, none has focused specifically on statin-associated muscle symptoms (SAMS) sufferers. The objective was to assess self-reported HRQoL, before and after statin withdrawal, in patients reporting SAMS. We hypothesized that the presence of SAMS associated with decreased self-reported physical and mental well-being.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: There is a limited amount of literature examining torso biomechanics and stride length while addressing their relationship to medial elbow injuries in the adolescent baseball pitcher. Anatomical changes, growth, early sport specialization, multiple team participation, mound distance, mound height, and high pitch counts place adolescent pitchers at an exceptionally higher risk for medial elbow injuries. Existing evidence indicates that decreased stride length and altered trunk rotation is correlated with increased medial elbow loading for the adolescent overhead athlete.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/objectives: The association between vitamin D and DSPN has been investigated in cross-sectional studies in individuals with diabetes. However, evidence from prospective and population-based studies is still lacking. Also, the potential modifying effect of obesity and glucose tolerance has not been investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEven though sunlight is viewed as the most important determinant of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) status, several European studies have observed higher 25(OH)D concentrations among north-Europeans than south-Europeans. We studied the association between geographical latitude (derived from ecological data) and 25(OH)D status in six European countries using harmonised immunoassay data from 81 084 participants in the Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Risk Assessment in Europe (BiomarCaRE) project (male sex 48·9 %; median age 50·8 years; examination period 1984-2014). Quantile regression models, adjusted for age, sex, decade and calendar week of sampling and time from sampling to analysis, were used for between-country comparisons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNephrol Dial Transplant
September 2022
Background: Inflammatory processes have been implicated in the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). We investigated the association of a large panel of inflammatory biomarkers reflecting aspects of immunity with kidney function and CKD incidence.
Methods: We used data from two independent population-based studies, KORA F4 (discovery, n = 1110, mean age 70.
Background: Uromodulin is a kidney-specific glycoprotein synthesized in tubular cells of Henle's loop exerting nephroprotective and immunomodulatory functions in the urinary tract. A small amount of uromodulin is also released into the systemic circulation, where its physiological role is unknown. Serum uromodulin (sUmod) has been associated with metabolic risk factors and with cardiovascular events and mortality, where these associations were partly stronger in men than in women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is still unclear how genetic information, provided as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), can be most effectively integrated into risk prediction models for coronary heart disease (CHD) to add significant predictive value beyond clinical risk models. For the present study, a population-based case-cohort was used as a trainingset (451 incident cases, 1488 noncases) and an independent cohort as testset (160 incident cases, 2749 noncases). The following strategies to quantify genetic information were compared: A weighted genetic risk score including Metabochip SNPs associated with CHD in the literature (GRS ); selection of the most predictive SNPs among these literature-confirmed variants using priority-Lasso (PL ); validation of two comprehensive polygenic risk scores: GRS based on Metabochip data, and GRS (available in the testset only) based on cross-validated genome-wide genotyping data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The metabolic syndrome (MetS), defined by the simultaneous clustering of cardio-metabolic risk factors, is a significant worldwide public health burden with an estimated 25% prevalence worldwide. The pathogenesis of MetS is not entirely clear and the use of molecular level data could help uncover common pathogenic pathways behind the observed clustering.
Methods: Using a highly multiplexed aptamer-based affinity proteomics platform, we examined associations between plasma proteins and prevalent and incident MetS in the KORA cohort (n = 998) and replicated our results for prevalent MetS in the HUNT3 study (n = 923).
Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis
February 2021
Background And Aims: In a non-interventional study of older persons, we assessed the impact of changes in BMI and waist circumference (WC) on reversion from glucose- and HbA1c-defined prediabetes to normoglycaemia (in short: reversion) and on persistence of normoglycaemia. Moreover, we studied whether reversion reduced cardiovascular risk.
Methods And Results: From the population-based KORA S4/F4/FF4 cohort study conducted in Southern Germany, we utilized data from the second and third visit to the study center (median follow-up 6.
Biological exploration of early biomarkers for chronic kidney disease (CKD) in (pre)diabetic individuals is crucial for personalized management of diabetes. Here, we evaluated two candidate biomarkers of incident CKD (sphingomyelin (SM) C18:1 and phosphatidylcholine diacyl (PC aa) C38:0) concerning kidney function in hyperglycemic participants of the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) cohort, and in two biofluids and six organs of leptin receptor-deficient (db/db) mice and wild type controls. Higher serum concentrations of SM C18:1 and PC aa C38:0 in hyperglycemic individuals were found to be associated with lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and higher odds of CKD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A growing number of epidemiological studies show associations between environmental factors and impaired cardiometabolic health. However, evidence is scarce concerning these risk factors and their impact on metabolic syndrome (MetS). This analysis aims to investigate associations between long-term exposure to air pollution, road traffic noise, residential greenness, and MetS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Impaired insulin sensitivity could be an intermediate step that links exposure to air pollution to the development of type 2 diabetes. However, longitudinal associations of air pollution with insulin sensitivity remain unclear. Our study investigated the associations of long-term air pollution exposure with the degree and rate of change of insulin sensitivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Improved strategies to identify persons at high risk of type 2 diabetes are important to target costly preventive efforts to those who will benefit most.
Objective: This work aimed to assess whether novel biomarkers improve the prediction of type 2 diabetes beyond noninvasive standard clinical risk factors alone or in combination with glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c).
Methods: We used a population-based case-cohort study for discovery (689 incident cases and 1850 noncases) and an independent cohort study (262 incident cases, 2549 noncases) for validation.
Background: Air pollution contributes to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, but its relevance for other complications of diabetes, in particular distal sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN), is unclear. Recent studies have indicated that DSPN is also increasingly prevalent in obesity.
Objectives: We aimed to assess associations of air pollutants with prevalent and incident DSPN in a population-based study of older individuals with high rates of type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The plasma proteome is the ultimate target for biomarker discovery. It stores an endless amount of information on the pathophysiological status of a living organism, which is, however, still difficult to comprehensively access. The high complexity of the plasma proteome can be addressed by either a system-wide and unbiased tool such as mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) or a highly sensitive targeted immunoassay such as the proximity extension assay (PEA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly and precise identification of individuals with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (T2D) at risk for progressing to chronic kidney disease (CKD) is essential to prevent complications of diabetes. Here, we identify and evaluate prospective metabolite biomarkers and the best set of predictors of CKD in the longitudinal, population-based Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) cohort by targeted metabolomics and machine learning approaches. Out of 125 targeted metabolites, sphingomyelin C18:1 and phosphatidylcholine diacyl C38:0 were identified as candidate metabolite biomarkers of incident CKD specifically in hyperglycemic individuals followed during 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith an estimated prevalence of 463 million affected, type 2 diabetes represents a major challenge to health care systems worldwide. Analyzing the plasma proteomes of individuals with type 2 diabetes may illuminate hitherto unknown functional mechanisms underlying disease pathology. We assessed the associations between type 2 diabetes and >1,000 plasma proteins in the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) F4 cohort ( = 993, 110 cases), with subsequent replication in the third wave of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT3) cohort ( = 940, 149 cases).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLight is considered a factor that influences the seed germination of many weed species, and it can signal whether the environmental conditions are favorable or are not favorable for germination. We aimed to study if there is an influence of light quality and dormancy overcoming in seed germination of Echium plantagineum L. We carried out a 2 x 6 factorial experiment, with and without dormancy overcoming with potassium nitrate followed by immersion in gibberellic acid; six light qualities, obtained through the light filters: blue, green, red, far-red, white light and absence of light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Peripheral arterial tonometry (PAT) is an operator-independent and non-invasive measurement method to assess microvascular endothelial function in the fingertips. PAT-derived measures of endothelial function were associated with type 2 diabetes in cross-sectional studies. However, longitudinal studies are lacking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBottom Line Up Front: Prison, for most incarcerated persons, can be a harsh and oftentimes dehumanizing environment. The U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is limited knowledge about mortality risk in persons with increased haemoglobin A (HbA ) levels below the diabetes threshold. Moreover, little is known about how associations between increased HbA and mortality depend on the length of follow-up. Therefore, we studied associations between HbA and mortality over long-term follow-up in persons with and without known diabetes.
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