Urinary metabolic biomarkers of diet quality in European children are associated with metabolic health.

Urinary metabolic profiling is a promising powerful tool to reflect dietary intake and can help understand metabolic alterations in response to diet quality. Here, we used H NMR spectroscopy in a multicountry study in European children (1147 children from 6 different cohorts) and identified a common panel of 4 urinary metabolites (hippurate, -methylnicotinic acid, urea, and sucrose) that was predictive of Mediterranean diet adherence (KIDMED) and ultra-processed food consumption and also had higher capacity in discriminating children's diet quality than that of established sociodemographic determinants. Further, we showed that the identified metabolite panel also reflected the associations of these diet quality indicators with C-peptide, a stable and accurate marker of insulin resistance and future risk of metabolic disease.

Food intake and weight loss of surviving inpatients in the course of COVID-19 infection: A longitudinal study of the multicenter NutriCoviD30 cohort.

Objectives: NutriCoviD30 is a longitudinal multicenter cohort study that aimed to provide nutritional objective data of inpatients during COVID-19 infection. The aims of this study were to describe the nutritional effects of COVID-19 infection on adult inpatients on the short- to mid-term (≤30 d after hospital discharge), using food intake and weight measurements and to identify factors associated with a decrease in food intake and weight.

Methods: Food intake and weight trajectories, as well as clinical signs of the disease, preexisting chronic diseases, and nutritional strategies were collected and analyzed during the course of the disease.

Dynamic SOFA score assessments to predict outcomes after acute admission of octogenarians to the intensive care unit.

Background: Identifying which octogenarians could benefit most from continuing critical care is challenging. We aimed to see if responses to therapies using the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score on day 4 after unplanned admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) could be associated with short-term mortality.

Methods: In this prospective observational cohort study, data from 4 ICUs in a University Hospital included SOFA scores on admission and day 4, along with preadmission measurements of frailty, comorbidities, nutritional status and number of medications.

Multiple environmental exposures in early-life and allergy-related outcomes in childhood.

Introduction: Early onset and high prevalence of allergic diseases result in high individual and socio-economic burdens. Several studies provide evidence for possible effects of environmental factors on allergic diseases, but these are mainly single-exposure studies. The exposome provides a novel holistic approach by simultaneously studying a large set of exposures.

Early-Life Environmental Exposures and Childhood Obesity: An Exposome-Wide Approach.

Background: Chemical and nonchemical environmental exposures are increasingly suspected to influence the development of obesity, especially during early life, but studies mostly consider single exposure groups.

Objectives: Our study aimed to systematically assess the association between a wide array of early-life environmental exposures and childhood obesity, using an exposome-wide approach.

Methods: The HELIX (Human Early Life Exposome) study measured child body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, skinfold thickness, and body fat mass in 1,301 children from six European birth cohorts age 6-11 y.

Relying on repeated biospecimens to reduce the effects of classical-type exposure measurement error in studies linking the exposome to health.

The exposome calls for assessing numerous exposures, typically using biomarkers with varying amounts of measurement error, which can be assumed to be of classical type. We evaluated the impact of classical-type measurement error on the performance of exposome-health studies, and the efficiency of two measurement error correction methods relying on the collection of repeated biospecimens: within-subject biospecimens pooling and regression calibration. In a simulation study, we generated 237 exposures from a realistic correlation matrix, with various amounts of classical-type measurement error, and a continuous health outcome linearly influenced by exposures.

Applying the exposome concept in birth cohort research: a review of statistical approaches.

The exposome represents the totality of life course environmental exposures (including lifestyle and other non-genetic factors), from the prenatal period onwards. This holistic concept of exposure provides a new framework to advance the understanding of complex and multifactorial diseases. Prospective pregnancy and birth cohort studies provide a unique opportunity for exposome research as they are able to capture, from prenatal life onwards, both the external (including lifestyle, chemical, social and wider community-level exposures) and the internal (including inflammation, metabolism, epigenetics, and gut microbiota) domains of the exposome.

Using methylome data to inform exposome-health association studies: An application to the identification of environmental drivers of child body mass index.

Background: The exposome is defined as encompassing all environmental exposures one undergoes from conception onwards. Challenges of the application of this concept to environmental-health association studies include a possibly high false-positive rate.

Objectives: We aimed to reduce the dimension of the exposome using information from DNA methylation as a way to more efficiently characterize the relation between exposome and child body mass index (BMI).

Association of Fish Consumption and Mercury Exposure During Pregnancy With Metabolic Health and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Children.

Importance: The balance of mercury risk and nutritional benefit from fish intake during pregnancy for the metabolic health of offspring to date is unknown.

Objective: To assess the associations of fish intake and mercury exposure during pregnancy with metabolic syndrome in children and alterations in biomarkers of inflammation in children.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based prospective birth cohort study used data from studies performed in 5 European countries (France, Greece, Norway, Spain, and the UK) between April 1, 2003, and February 26, 2016, as part of the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) project.

An Empirical Validation of the Within-subject Biospecimens Pooling Approach to Minimize Exposure Misclassification in Biomarker-based Studies.

Background: Within-subject biospecimens pooling can theoretically reduce bias in dose-response functions from biomarker-based studies when exposure assessment suffers from classical-type error. However, collecting many urine voids each day is cumbersome. We evaluated the empirical validity of a within-subject pooling approach and compared several options to avoid sampling each void.

Influence of the Urban Exposome on Birth Weight.

Background: The exposome is defined as the totality of environmental exposures from conception onwards. It calls for providing a holistic view of environmental exposures and their effects on human health by evaluating multiple environmental exposures simultaneously during critical periods of life.

Objective: We evaluated the association of the urban exposome with birth weight.

Early-life exposome and lung function in children in Europe: an analysis of data from the longitudinal, population-based HELIX cohort.

Background: Several single-exposure studies have documented possible effects of environmental factors on lung function, but none has relied on an exposome approach. We aimed to evaluate the association between a broad range of prenatal and postnatal lifestyle and environmental exposures and lung function in children.

Methods: In this analysis, we used data from 1033 mother-child pairs from the European Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) cohort (consisting of six existing longitudinal birth cohorts in France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, and the UK of children born between 2003 and 2009) for whom a valid spirometry test was recorded for the child.

The early-life exposome: Description and patterns in six European countries.

Characterization of the "exposome", the set of all environmental factors that one is exposed to from conception onwards, has been advocated to better understand the role of environmental factors on chronic diseases. Here, we aimed to describe the early-life exposome. Specifically, we focused on the correlations between multiple environmental exposures, their patterns and their variability across European regions and across time (pregnancy and childhood periods).

Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) study: a European population-based exposome cohort.

Purpose: Essential to exposome research is the collection of data on many environmental exposures from different domains in the same subjects. The aim of the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) study was to measure and describe multiple environmental exposures during early life (pregnancy and childhood) in a prospective cohort and associate these exposures with molecular omics signatures and child health outcomes. Here, we describe recruitment, measurements available and baseline data of the HELIX study populations.

Pregnancy exposure to atmospheric pollution and meteorological conditions and placental DNA methylation.

Background: Air pollution exposure represents a major health threat to the developing foetus. DNA methylation is one of the most well-known molecular determinants of the epigenetic status of cells. Blood DNA methylation has been proven sensitive to air pollutants, but the molecular impact of air pollution on new-borns has so far received little attention.

A systematic comparison of statistical methods to detect interactions in exposome-health associations.

Background: There is growing interest in examining the simultaneous effects of multiple exposures and, more generally, the effects of mixtures of exposures, as part of the exposome concept (being defined as the totality of human environmental exposures from conception onwards). Uncovering such combined effects is challenging owing to the large number of exposures, several of them being highly correlated. We performed a simulation study in an exposome context to compare the performance of several statistical methods that have been proposed to detect statistical interactions.

Towards understanding the epidemiology of Neisseria meningitidis in the African meningitis belt: a multi-disciplinary overview.

Objectives: Neisseria meningitidis is the major cause of seasonal meningitis epidemics in the African meningitis belt. In the changing context of a reduction in incidence of serogroup A and an increase in incidence of serogroups W and C and of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a better understanding of the determinants driving the disease transmission dynamics remains crucial to improving bacterial meningitis control.

Methods: The literature was searched to provide a multi-disciplinary overview of the determinants of meningitis transmission dynamics in the African meningitis belt.

Maternal exposure to diluted diesel engine exhaust alters placental function and induces intergenerational effects in rabbits.

Background: Airborne pollution is a rising concern in urban areas. Epidemiological studies in humans and animal experiments using rodent models indicate that gestational exposure to airborne pollution, in particular diesel engine exhaust (DE), reduces birth weight, but effects depend on exposure duration, gestational window and nanoparticle (NP) concentration. Our aim was to evaluate the effects of gestational exposure to diluted DE on feto-placental development in a rabbit model.

The exposome concept: a challenge and a potential driver for environmental health research.

The exposome concept was defined in 2005 as encompassing all environmental exposures from conception onwards, as a new strategy to evidence environmental disease risk factors. Although very appealing, the exposome concept is challenging in many respects. In terms of assessment, several hundreds of time-varying exposures need to be considered, but increasing the number of exposures assessed should not be done at the cost of increased exposure misclassification.

A Systematic Comparison of Linear Regression-Based Statistical Methods to Assess Exposome-Health Associations.

Background: The exposome constitutes a promising framework to improve understanding of the effects of environmental exposures on health by explicitly considering multiple testing and avoiding selective reporting. However, exposome studies are challenged by the simultaneous consideration of many correlated exposures.

Objectives: We compared the performances of linear regression-based statistical methods in assessing exposome-health associations.

The Pregnancy Exposome: Multiple Environmental Exposures in the INMA-Sabadell Birth Cohort.

The "exposome" is defined as "the totality of human environmental exposures from conception onward, complementing the genome" and its holistic approach may advance understanding of disease etiology. We aimed to describe the correlation structure of the exposome during pregnancy to better understand the relationships between and within families of exposure and to develop analytical tools appropriate to exposome data. Estimates on 81 environmental exposures of current health concern were obtained for 728 women enrolled in The INMA (INfancia y Medio Ambiente) birth cohort, in Sabadell, Spain, using biomonitoring, geospatial modeling, remote sensors, and questionnaires.

Timely detection of bacterial meningitis epidemics at district level: a study in three countries of the African Meningitis Belt.

Background: Bacterial meningitis is a major public health problem in the African 'Meningitis Belt', where recurrent unpredictable epidemics occur. Despite the introduction in 2010 of the conjugate A vaccine, the reactive strategy remains important for responding to epidemics caused by other bacteria and in areas not yet vaccinated. Review of weekly numbers of suspected cases in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso identified spatial disparities in the annual patterns of meningitis, which suggested a more local way of defining epidemics and initiating a timely vaccination campaign.

Identification of Chinese plague foci from long-term epidemiological data.

Carrying out statistical analysis over an extensive dataset of human plague reports in Chinese villages from 1772 to 1964, we identified plague endemic territories in China (i.e., plague foci).