Publications by authors named "Mario Sims"

Background: Neighborhood characteristics serve as risk factors for metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, the intermediary factors linking this relationship remain understudied. Thus, we investigated the sex-specific mediating role of C-reactive protein, physical activity (PA), and perceived stress in the associations of perceived neighborhood social environment (PNSE) with MetS severity among Black adults.

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  • African American adults face higher rates of tobacco-related diseases, influenced by experiences with racial discrimination, highlighting the need for further research on this topic.
  • The study aimed to explore how perceived racial discrimination impacts smoking habits among African Americans, investigating religion and spirituality as potential moderating factors.
  • Analysis of data from the Jackson Heart Study revealed that everyday racial discrimination significantly increases the likelihood of smoking, but prayer as a coping mechanism appears to reduce this risk among participants.
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Objectives: The Life's Simple 7 score (LS7) promotes cardiovascular health (CVH). Despite this, some with optimal LS7 develop cardiovascular disease (CVD), while others with poor CVH do not, termed the "CVH paradox." This paper explores pathways explaining this paradox.

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Few prospective studies examine multilevel resilience resources and psychosocial factors in relation to cardiovascular health and disease. Recent research indicates that resilience resources are associated with a reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease-related events, but few studies have examined this relationship across different racial/ethnic populations or in large cohorts. Harmonization may address these limitations because it allows data from several cohorts to be analyzed together, potentially increasing sample size and in turn power overall and in minority populations.

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Obesity and poverty disproportionally affect African American persons. Epigenetic mechanisms could partially explain the association between socioeconomic disadvantage and body mass index (BMI). We examined the extent to which epigenetic mechanisms mediate the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on BMI.

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Importance: The benefit of adding social determinants of health (SDOH) when estimating atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk is unclear.

Objective: To examine the association of SDOH at both individual and area levels with ASCVD risks, and to assess if adding individual- and area-level SDOH to the pooled cohort equations (PCEs) or the Predicting Risk of CVD Events (PREVENT) equations improves the accuracy of risk estimates.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study included participants data from 4 large US cohort studies.

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The neighborhoods where individuals reside shape environmental exposures, access to resources, and opportunities. The inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities across neighborhoods perpetuates and exacerbates cardiovascular health inequities. Thus, interventions that address the neighborhood environment could reduce the inequitable burden of cardiovascular disease in disenfranchised populations.

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Background: Socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with cardiovascular health (CVH). Potential differences by sex in this association remain incompletely understood in Black Americans, where SES disparities are posited to be partially responsible for cardiovascular inequities. The association of SES measures (income, education, occupation, and insurance) with CVH scores was examined in the Jackson Heart Study.

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  • Educational attainment is linked to cardiovascular health, and a large genomic study examined how it interacts with cholesterol and triglyceride levels in nearly 226,315 individuals across five population groups.
  • The study identified 18 new genetic variations related to lipid levels—nine for low-density lipoprotein (LDL), seven for high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and two for triglycerides (TG)—some of which interact with educational attainment.
  • Researchers also found five gene targets that potentially interact with FDA-approved drugs, suggesting a connection between genetics and drug responses related to lipid metabolism and overall health.
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The present study sought to leverage machine learning approaches to determine whether social determinants of health improve prediction of incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). Participants in the Jackson Heart study with no history of CVD at baseline were followed over a 10-year period to determine first CVD events (i.e.

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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) disproportionately affects Black adults. Greater social networks (SNs), or social connectedness, may lower the risk of CVD events. This study determined the association of SNs and incident CVD and tested mediation by depressive symptoms, hypertension control, and diabetes control.

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  • - Cardiovascular disease (CVD) greatly impacts African American populations, but their underrepresentation in genetic studies might exacerbate health disparities; this study focuses on how polygenic risk scores (PRSs) relate to CVD risk in African Americans
  • - Using data from the Jackson Heart Study, researchers analyzed genetic factors influencing 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk in 2,077 black adults aged 40-79 who had no history of coronary heart disease or stroke
  • - Results showed that participants with higher HbA1c PRS had a significantly increased predicted ASCVD risk, indicating that genetic predisposition can influence cardiovascular health and emphasizing the need for inclusive genetic research in health studies
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Few studies have evaluated environmental factors that predict survival to old age. Our study included 913 African American participants in the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) who resided in the tri-county area of the Jackson, MS metropolitan area and were 65-80 years at baseline. Participants were followed from 2000 through 2019 for the outcome of survival to 85 years old.

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Although many novel gene-metabolite and gene-protein associations have been identified using high-throughput biochemical profiling, systematic studies that leverage human genetics to illuminate causal relationships between circulating proteins and metabolites are lacking. Here, we performed protein-metabolite association studies in 3,626 plasma samples from three human cohorts. We detected 171,800 significant protein-metabolite pairwise correlations between 1,265 proteins and 365 metabolites, including established relationships in metabolic and signaling pathways such as the protein thyroxine-binding globulin and the metabolite thyroxine, as well as thousands of new findings.

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Objective: To analyze associations between adiposity and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) in a large African American (AA) cohort.

Methods: Cross-sectional associations of adiposity (body mass index [BMI], waist circumference [WC], waist:height ratio, waist:hip ratio, leptin, adiponectin, leptin:adiponectin ratio [LAR], subcutaneous [SAT] and visceral adipose tissue [VAT], and liver attenuation [LA]) with aldosterone, plasma renin activity (renin), and aldosterone:renin ratio (ARR) were assessed in the Jackson Heart Study using adjusted linear regression models.

Results: A 1-SD higher BMI was associated with a 4.

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Background: The association of historical redlining policies, a marker of structural racism, with contemporary heart failure (HF) risk among White and Black individuals is not well established.

Methods: We aimed to evaluate the association of redlining with the risk of HF among White and Black Medicare beneficiaries. Zip code-level redlining was determined by the proportion of historically redlined areas using the Mapping Inequality Project within each zip code.

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We examined relationships between resilience resources (optimism, social support, and neighborhood social cohesion) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence and assessed potential effect-measure modification by psychosocial risk factors (e.g., stress, depression) among adults without CVD in 3 cohort studies (2000-2018): the Jackson Heart Study, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study.

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  • * The study involved 6,722 participants (including both predominantly White and African American cohorts) to identify proteins associated with lung function, using advanced proteomic methods and spirometry data.
  • * Findings revealed 254 proteins linked to lung function, with 15 proteins associated with the decline in lung function over time, highlighting significant biological pathways like immune response and matrix remodeling.
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Introduction: Non-Hispanic Black, compared to non-Hispanic White, older adults are at increased risk for dementia. This may be due partly to greater exposure to psychosocial stressors, such as discrimination; however, few studies have examined this association.

Methods: We examined the association of perceived discrimination (e.

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Objective: Evidence suggests that greater social integration is related to lower mortality rates. However, studies among African-Americans are limited. We examined whether higher social integration was associated with lower mortality in 5306 African-Americans from the Jackson Heart Study, who completed the Berkman-Syme Social Network Index in 2000-2004 and were followed until 2018.

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Study Objectives: To examine associations between perceived neighborhood social environment (PNSE) and sleep, mediated by physical activity (PA) and psychosocial stressors.

Methods: A sample ( = 4705) of African Americans (mean age 55.0 years; 63.

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Background: The cumulative socioeconomic status (SES) model posits that childhood and adult experiences accumulate to influence disease risk. While individual SES indicators such as education and income are independently associated with incident type 2 diabetes (T2D), the association of cumulative SES and incident T2D is unclear, especially in African American adults.

Methods: We utilized cohort data of African American participants (n = 3681, mean age 52.

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N-acyl amino acids are a large family of circulating lipid metabolites that modulate energy expenditure and fat mass in rodents. However, little is known about the regulation and potential cardiometabolic functions of N-acyl amino acids in humans. Here, we analyze the cardiometabolic phenotype associations and genomic associations of four plasma N-acyl amino acids (N-oleoyl-leucine, N-oleoyl-phenylalanine, N-oleoyl-serine, and N-oleoyl-glycine) in 2351 individuals from the Jackson Heart Study.

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