Preconception Antidiabetic Drugs in Men and Birth Defects in Offspring : A Nationwide Cohort Study.

Background: Diabetes reduces semen quality and increasingly occurs during reproductive years. Diabetes medications, such as metformin, have glucose-independent effects on the male reproductive system. Associations with birth defects in offspring are unknown.

The Danaid Theory of Aging.

The classical evolutionary theories of aging suggest that aging evolves due to insufficient selective pressure against it. In these theories, declining selection pressure with age leads to aging through genes or resource allocations, implying that aging could potentially be stalled were genes, resource allocation, or selection pressure somewhat different. While these classical evolutionary theories are undeniably part of a description of the evolution of aging, they do not explain the diversity of aging patterns, and they do not constitute the only possible evolutionary explanation.

Variability Matters.

Much of science, including public health research, focuses on means (averages). The purpose of the present paper is to reinforce the idea that variability matters just as well. At the hand of four examples, we highlight four classes of situations where the conclusion drawn on the basis of the mean alone is qualitatively altered when variability is also considered.

Risk of pre-term births and major birth defects resulting from paternal intake of COVID-19 medications prior to conception.

Objective: With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of people will receive one of the several medications proposed to treat COVID-19, including patients of reproductive age. Given that some medications have shown adverse effects on sperm quality, there might be a transgenerational concern. We aim at examining the association between drugs proposed to treat COVID-19 when taken by the father around conception and any pre-term birth or major birth defects in offspring in a nation-wide cohort study using Danish registry data.

Risk of pre-term births and major birth defects resulting from paternal intake of COVID-19 medications prior to conception.

Objective: With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of people will receive one of the several medications proposed to treat COVID-19, including patients of reproductive age. Given that some medications have shown adverse effects on sperm quality, there might be a transgenerational concern. We aim at examining the association between drugs proposed to treat COVID-19 when taken by the father around conception and any pre-term birth or major birth defects in offspring in a nation-wide cohort study using Danish registry data.

Understanding Differences in Cancer Survival between Populations: A New Approach and Application to Breast Cancer Survival Differentials between Danish Regions.

Large variations in cancer survival have been recorded between populations, e.g., between countries or between regions in a country.

The Rarity of Survival to Old Age Does Not Drive the Evolution of Senescence.

The evolution of senescence is often explained by arguing that, in nature, few individuals survive to be old and hence it is evolutionarily unimportant what happens to organisms when they are old. A corollary to this idea is that extrinsically imposed mortality, because it reduces the chance of surviving to be old, favors the evolution of senescence. We show that these ideas, although widespread, are incorrect.

Size, longevity and cancer: age structure.

There is significant recent interest in Peto's paradox and the related problem of the evolution of large, long-lived organisms in terms of cancer robustness. Peto's paradox refers to the expectation that large, long-lived organisms have a higher lifetime cancer risk, which is not the case: a paradox. This paradox, however, is circular: large, long-lived organisms are large and long-lived because they are cancer robust.

Intrinsic and extrinsic mortality reunited.

Intrinsic and extrinsic mortality are often separated in order to understand and measure aging. Intrinsic mortality is assumed to be a result of aging and to increase over age, whereas extrinsic mortality is assumed to be a result of environmental hazards and be constant over age. However, allegedly intrinsic and extrinsic mortality have an exponentially increasing age pattern in common.

Interaction mortality: senescence may have evolved because it increases lifespan.

Given an extrinsic challenge, an organism may die or not depending on how the threat interacts with the organism's physiological state. To date, such interaction mortality has been only a minor factor in theoretical modeling of senescence. We describe a model of interaction mortality that does not involve specific functions, making only modest assumptions.

No senescence despite declining selection pressure: Hamilton's result in broader perspective.

Theory predicts that senescence should inevitably evolve because selection pressure declines with age. Yet, data show that senescence is not a universal phenomenon. How can these observations peacefully coexist? Evolution of any trait hinges on its impact on fitness.

The maintenance gap: a new theoretical perspective on the evolution of aging.

One of the prevailing theories of aging, the disposable soma theory, views aging as the result of the accumulation of damage through imperfect maintenance. Aging, then, is explained from an evolutionary perspective by asserting that this lack of maintenance exists because the required resources are better invested in reproduction. However, the amount of maintenance necessary to prevent aging, 'maintenance requirement' has so far been largely neglected and has certainly not been considered from an evolutionary perspective.

Elevated CRP levels are associated with increased carotid atherosclerosis independent of visceral obesity.

Background: Visceral obesity (VO) is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels are associated with VO and cardiovascular disease. After exploring the relation between CRP and VO, we aimed to evaluate the VO independent relation between CRP and carotid atherosclerosis.