Publications by authors named "Kristen Lee"

Cushing syndrome due to ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) secretion (EAS) is rare and may progress rapidly, making treatment very challenging. We report a 27-year-old woman with metastatic neuroendocrine tumor (NET) who presented with sudden onset and rapidly progressing fatigue, muscle weakness, and weight gain. Laboratory findings confirmed severe EAS with new onset hypocalcemia, hypokalemia, and hyperglycemia.

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Despite recent advances in understanding the connection between the gut microbiota and the adult brain, significant knowledge gaps remain regarding how gut inflammation affects brain development. We hypothesized that gut inflammation during early life would negatively affect neurodevelopment by disrupting microbiota communication to the brain. We therefore developed a novel pediatric chemical model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an incurable condition affecting millions of people worldwide.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted lives worldwide, particularly affecting older adults, yet specific experiences of older women, especially in Asian contexts, remain underexplored.
  • This study focuses on how older Singaporean women (aged 55+) adapted to government-imposed restrictions during the pandemic by analyzing their social engagement through two rounds of in-depth interviews.
  • Three patterns of social engagement emerged: decreased, intensified, and continuity, with stronger social networks leading to either maintained or increased engagement, primarily relying on family, friends, and community resources.
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Background: Neuroinflammation is involved in the pathogenesis of almost every central nervous system disorder. As the brain's innate immune cells, microglia fine tune their activity to a dynamic brain environment. Previous studies have shown that repeated bouts of peripheral inflammation can trigger long-term changes in microglial gene expression and function, a form of innate immune memory.

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New diabetes drugs such as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide/GLP-1 RAs have emerged to show hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) reduction, weight loss, and cardiovascular benefits. Similarly, sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors' benefits span from HbA1c decrease to cardiovascular and renoprotective effects. Diabetes technology has expanded to include type 2 diabetes mellitus, with literature supporting its use in T2DM on any insulin regimen.

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  • Higher weight individuals experience significant weight stigma, which activates stress responses and leads to comfort eating, contributing to further weight gain and increased stigma.* -
  • The study tested the COBWEBS model using a yearlong survey of 348 higher weight individuals, focusing on the links between weight stigma, stress, and comfort eating over time.* -
  • Findings indicated that while weight stigma and perceived stress are related, comfort eating did not predict weight gain in the long term, highlighting the complexity of these interactions and suggesting areas for further research to mitigate stigma's impact.*
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Weight stigma is highly prevalent. However, existing weight stigma interventions are only modestly effective at reducing anti-fat attitudes. The current research proposes a novel approach using a loving kindness meditation (LKM).

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Background: Acute neurological manifestation is a common complication of acute Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease. This retrospective cohort study investigated the 3-year outcomes of patients with and without significant neurological manifestations during initial COVID-19 hospitalization.

Methods And Findings: Patients hospitalized for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection between 03/01/2020 and 4/16/2020 in the Montefiore Health System in the Bronx, an epicenter of the early pandemic, were included.

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Objective: The ORAL Surveillance trial found a dose-dependent increase in venous thromboembolism (VTE) and pulmonary embolism (PE) events with tofacitinib versus tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi). We aimed to assess VTE incidence over time and explore risk factors of VTE, including disease activity, in ORAL Surveillance.

Methods: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) aged 50 years or older with at least one additional cardiovascular risk factor received tofacitinib 5 or 10 mg twice daily (BID) or TNFi.

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Aims/hypothesis: Physiological gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) subtypes that may confer different risks for adverse pregnancy outcomes have been defined. The aim of this study was to characterise the metabolome and genetic architecture of GDM subtypes to address the hypothesis that they differ between GDM subtypes.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of participants in the Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcome (HAPO) study who underwent an OGTT at approximately 28 weeks' gestation.

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Since the approvals of several vaccines against COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, a large body of research has studied the determinants of individuals' intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in a variety of societies. Vaccine intention is a complex construct rooted in the social context that informs the decision-making process. The underlying reasons for older adults' intention to receive the vaccination is even more important to health authorities in societies with large proportions of older adults.

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People achieve important life outcomes of health, financial security, and productivity by repeating operant behavior. To identify whether such operants reflect goal pursuit or habit, the present research introduces a new paradigm that yields objective measures of learning and controls for the motivations of goal pursuit. In two experiments, participants practiced a sequential task of making sushi and then completed a test of the strength of cue-response (habit) associations in memory.

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Importance: Preterm birth is a major contributor to neonatal morbidity and mortality, and considerable differences exist in rates of preterm birth among maternal racial and ethnic groups. Emerging evidence suggests pregnant individuals born outside the US have fewer obstetric complications than those born in the US, but the intersection of maternal nativity with race and ethnicity for preterm birth is not well studied.

Objective: To determine if there is an association between maternal nativity and preterm birth rates among nulliparous individuals, and whether that association differs by self-reported race and ethnicity of the pregnant individual.

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Metastatic porocarcinomas (PCs) are vanishingly rare, highly aggressive skin adnexal tumors with mortality rates exceeding 70%. Their rarity has precluded the understanding of their disease pathogenesis, let alone the conduct of clinical trials to evaluate treatment strategies. There are no effective agents for unresectable PCs.

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Importance: Although most thyroid nodules are benign, 10% to 15% of them harbor cancer. Thyroid ultrasonography is useful for risk stratification of nodules, and American College of Radiology Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (ACR TI-RADS) classification provides recommendations for fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) based on objective ultrasonographic features of these nodules.

Objective: To validate the concordance of ACR TI-RADS classification with Bethesda classification and histopathology.

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Many adult patients with a history of seizures and global developmental delay do not have an identified etiology for their epilepsy. Rapid whole-genome sequencing (rWGS) can be used to identify a genetic etiology in critically ill patients to provide actionable interventions. In this case, a 27-year-old patient with a history of epilepsy, global developmental delay, and intellectual disability presented with altered mental status and new abnormal movements.

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Article Synopsis
  • A new approach to genomics experiments involves doing fewer experiments and using computational methods to fill in the gaps, but there are still uncertainties about which imputation methods work best and how to evaluate their performance effectively.* -
  • The study reviews 23 different methods from the ENCODE Imputation Challenge and discovers that assessing these methods is complicated by factors like changes in data collection practices, varying amounts of data, and overlapping evaluation metrics.* -
  • The authors suggest practical solutions to these challenges and highlight promising areas for future research to improve the robustness of imputation methods in genomics.*
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Hypertension is a major, modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the United States. Over the past decade, the prevalence of chronic hypertension (CHTN) during pregnancy has nearly doubled with persistent race- and place-based disparities. Blood pressure elevations are of particular concern during pregnancy given higher risk of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality, as well as higher lifetime risk of CVD in birthing individuals with CHTN.

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  • - The study aimed to assess the demographics of patients in Montefiore's Lung Cancer Screening Program compared to those diagnosed with lung cancer, focusing on factors like geography, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity to evaluate the effectiveness of the screening efforts.
  • - A total of 3,119 patients were analyzed, with a nearly equal split between genders and a significant concentration of cancer cases and screenings in lower-income neighborhoods, especially in Southeast Bronx, where the majority of patients identified as Hispanic.
  • - Although some statistical differences were noted, the findings suggest that the lung cancer screening program effectively targeted the intended vulnerable populations, highlighting the importance of tailored screening initiatives for similar groups.
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Education has been conceptualized as a causal factor leading to emotional well-being. However, it is also possible that some of the effect of education may be due to selection factors. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 10,908), we asked: to what extent does educational attainment increase emotional well-being once stable observed and unobserved individual characteristics are accounted for? Findings from fixed effects models showed that attaining a college degree was associated with greater emotional well-being.

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Pair1 is part of a larval locomotor circuit that promotes backward locomotion by inhibiting forward locomotion. We hypothesize that lineage related neurons may function in neuronal circuits together. Testing this hypothesis requires knowing the progenitor of each neuron within this locomotor circuit, and here we focus exclusively on Pair1.

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Introduction: The objective of this analysis was to assess disease activity metrics using a variety of disease outcome measures following methotrexate (MTX) withdrawal in ORAL Shift, a phase 3b/4 study of tofacitinib with/without MTX, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) achieving Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI)-defined low disease activity (LDA).

Methods: Patients aged ≥ 18 years with active RA and an inadequate response to MTX received open-label tofacitinib modified-release 11 mg once daily plus MTX for 24 weeks. In the double-blind MTX withdrawal phase, those who had achieved CDAI LDA (≤ 10) at week 24 were randomised 1:1 to receive tofacitinib monotherapy or continued tofacitinib plus MTX.

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