Publications by authors named "Matthias Schulze"

Aims: There is a lack of studies on the impact of diabetes risk scores on diabetes prevention. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of applying a non-invasive diabetes risk score as component of routine health checks on counselling intensity and shared decision-making (SDM) in primary care.

Methods: Cluster randomised trial, in which primary care physicians (n = 30) enrolled participants (n = 315) with statutory health insurance without known diabetes, ≥ 35 years of age with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 27.

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  • Previous models for predicting weight gain haven't been very effective, leading researchers to explore both traditional environmental factors and genetic markers to enhance accuracy.* -
  • A study involving nearly 246,000 participants found that environmental factors provided good predictive ability for weight gain, while genetic models performed poorly, especially at mid-late adulthood.* -
  • The research suggests that environmental factors should be incorporated into prevention strategies, and that genetic factors may be more relevant in predicting weight gain earlier in life.*
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: Nutrimetabolomics may reveal novel insights into early metabolic alterations and the role of dietary exposures on prostate cancer (PCa) risk. We aimed to prospectively investigate the associations between plasma metabolite concentrations and PCa risk, including clinically relevant tumor subtypes. : We used a targeted and large-scale metabolomics approach to analyze plasma samples of 851 matched PCa case-control pairs from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort.

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  • * The study focused on the relationship between long-term dietary mycotoxin exposure and hepatobiliary cancers in the EPIC cohort, using detailed food occurrence data to assess risks.
  • * Findings indicated a significant link between higher intake of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) and hepatocellular carcinoma risk, suggesting further research is needed on mycotoxins and their potential health impacts.
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Introduction: Observational studies have shown that more educated people are at lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, robust study designs are needed to investigate the likelihood that such a relationship is causal. This study used genetic instruments for education to estimate the effect of education on T2D using the Mendelian randomisation (MR) approach.

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Practicing a diverse diet may reduce chronic disease risk, but clear evidence is scarce and previous diet diversity measures rarely captured diet quality. We investigated the effect of the Healthy Food Diversity (HFD)-Index on incident type 2 diabetes (T2D), myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke among a middle-aged German population. The EPIC-Potsdam study recruited 27,548 participants from 1994 to 1998.

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Background: Nutri-Score is a scientifically validated 5-color front-of-pack nutrition label reflecting the nutrient profile of foods. It has been implemented in several European countries on a voluntary basis, pending the revision of the European labeling regulation. Hence, scientific evidence is needed regarding the ability of the nutrient profile underlying the Nutri-Score (uNS-NPS, 2023-updated version) to characterize healthier foods.

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  • A study analyzed the link between different levels of food processing and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, using data from the EPIC cohort involving nearly 312,000 participants over about 11 years.
  • The results showed that higher intake of ultra-processed foods (UPF) was significantly associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, while unprocessed/minimally processed foods and processed foods were linked to a lower risk.
  • Sub-group analysis revealed specific types of UPF, like certain breads and plant-based alternatives, that, surprisingly, were associated with a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
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Aims/hypothesis: The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between dietary exposures to dioxins, dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DL-PCBs) and non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (NDL-PCBs) and the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort.

Methods: This prospective cohort study with a median 11.7 years of follow-up, included 318,416 individuals recruited in 21 centers in eight countries.

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Experimental research has uncovered lipocalin 2 (LCN2) as a novel biomarker implicated in the modulation of intestinal inflammation, metabolic homeostasis, and colon carcinogenesis. However, evidence from human research has been scant. We, therefore, explored the association of pre-diagnostic circulating LCN2 concentrations with incident colorectal cancer (CRC) in a nested case-control study within the in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort.

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Unlabelled: Recent epidemiological studies have suggested a positive association between ultra-processed food consumption and breast cancer risk, although some studies also reported no association. Furthermore, the evidence regarding the associations between intake of food with lower degrees of processing and breast cancer risk is limited. Thus, we investigated the associations between dietary intake by degree of food processing and breast cancer risk, overall and by breast cancer subtypes in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study.

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  • * No significant associations were found between individual metabolites or patterns and overall prostate cancer risk after adjusting for multiple tests, except for six specific phosphatidylcholines linked to advanced cases diagnosed within 10 years.
  • * Two metabolite patterns (1 and 2) showed inverse associations with advanced prostate cancer, while pattern 3 was related to prostate cancer death, indicating that metabolite profiles may change several years before advanced disease is detected.
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  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to studies on how it affected people's mental health, with mixed results; some felt worse, while others stayed stable.
  • The study focused on 135,445 people in Germany to see how age and past mental health issues affected depression and anxiety during the early pandemic.
  • Results showed people with past mental health problems felt the same after the pandemic began, but younger folks without those issues felt worse, highlighting the need for better support strategies.
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  • The study investigated the links between saturated and unsaturated fatty acids and cardiovascular disease (CVD), focusing on conditions like coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in a large group of participants.
  • Results showed that higher levels of saturated fatty acids were linked to increased CVD risks, with specific subtypes having varying effects on CHD and stroke.
  • Conversely, higher concentrations of certain polyunsaturated fatty acids (both n-3 and n-6 types) were associated with lower risks of CHD and stroke, suggesting dietary fats play a significant role in cardiovascular health.
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  • This study developed a Sustainable Diet Index (SDI) to assess the sustainability of diets among adults in Ghana and Ghanaian migrants in Europe, focusing on factors like health, climate impact, cultural values, and cost.
  • Using data from 3,169 participants aged 25-70, the SDI ranged from 0 to 16 and utilized various dietary metrics, showing an overall mean SDI of 8.0.
  • Results indicated that higher SDI scores were linked to older age, female gender, non-smoking, and alcohol abstinence, with the highest SDI found in London (9.1), suggesting that living in Europe generally leads to more sustainable dietary practices compared to rural Ghana.
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  • Inflammation plays a significant role in breast cancer progression and prognosis, particularly through pre-diagnostic plasma biomarkers in women.
  • A study involving 1,538 women showed that elevated levels of the inflammatory marker IL-6 were linked to increased risks of all-cause and breast cancer-specific mortality, especially in postmenopausal women.
  • Higher levels of IL-10 and TNFα were also associated with all-cause mortality, and an inflammatory score could indicate poorer long-term survival, particularly in postmenopausal breast cancer survivors.
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  • Genome-wide association studies have found numerous genetic loci linked to glycemic traits, but connecting these loci to specific genes and biological pathways remains a challenge.
  • Researchers conducted meta-analyses of exome-array studies across four glycemic traits, analyzing data from over 144,000 participants, which led to the identification of coding variant associations in more than 60 genes.
  • The study revealed significant pathways related to insulin secretion, zinc transport, and fatty acid metabolism, enhancing understanding of glycemic regulation and making data available for further research.
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Background: Inflammation and immune dysregulation are hypothesized contributors to endometrial carcinogenesis; however, the precise underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

Methods: We measured pre-diagnostically 152 plasma protein biomarkers in 624 endometrial cancer case-control pairs nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Odds ratios (ORs) were estimated using conditional logistic regression, accounting for confounding and multiple comparisons.

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Background: The aim of this study was to determine the proportion of patients with prostate cancer (PCa) who remained on primary androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) after starting treatment for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and to describe their treatment patterns.

Materials And Methods: The study comprises a retrospective analysis of 609,308 patients in urological practices in Germany from 2011 to 2020 based on anonymized secondary data from the UROscience webserver. PCa patients were eligible for inclusion if they received ADT after a 6-month prescription-free pre-index period.

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  • Being overweight (adiposity) can increase the risk of dying from prostate cancer and other causes in men who have this disease.
  • A study followed 1968 men for about 9.5 years and found that gaining weight around the time of being diagnosed with prostate cancer made it more likely for them to not survive as long.
  • The results suggest that men should try to keep a healthy weight to potentially live longer, especially after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, but more research is needed to fully understand the connection.
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Background: Food biodiversity in human diets has potential co-benefits for both public health and sustainable food systems. However, current evidence on the potential relationship between food biodiversity and cancer risk, and particularly gastrointestinal cancers typically related to diet, remains limited. This study evaluated how dietary species richness (DSR) was associated with gastrointestinal cancer risk in a pan-European population.

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  • The study aimed to compare traditional and novel body shape indexes (like ABSI and HI) regarding their associations with inflammation markers, particularly C-reactive protein (CRP), using data from the EPIC and UK Biobank cohorts.
  • Participants included nearly 444,000 individuals, with the analysis involving various body shape phenotypes derived from measurements such as height and weight.
  • Results indicated that traditional measures like BMI and waist circumference were positively linked to CRP levels, while some body phenotypes showed varying associations by sex, highlighting the complexity of body shape and inflammation relationships.
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Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), formed endogenously or obtained exogenously from diet, may contribute to chronic inflammation, intracellular signaling alterations, and pathogenesis of several chronic diseases including colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the role of AGEs in CRC survival is less known. The associations of pre-diagnostic circulating AGEs and their soluble receptor (sRAGE) with CRC-specific and overall mortality were estimated using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression among 1369 CRC cases in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study.

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The healthy lifestyle index (HLI), defined as the unweighted sum of individual lifestyle components, was used to investigate the combined role of lifestyle factors on health-related outcomes. We introduced weighted outcome-specific versions of the HLI, where individual lifestyle components were weighted according to their associations with disease outcomes. Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), we examined the association between the standard and the outcome-specific HLIs and the risk of T2D, CVD, cancer, and all-cause premature mortality.

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Current cardiometabolic disease prevention guidelines recommend increasing dietary unsaturated fat intake while reducing saturated fats. Here we use lipidomics data from a randomized controlled dietary intervention trial to construct a multilipid score (MLS), summarizing the effects of replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat on 45 lipid metabolite concentrations. In the EPIC-Potsdam cohort, a difference in the MLS, reflecting better dietary fat quality, was associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease (-32%; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): -21% to -42%) and type 2 diabetes (-26%; 95% CI: -15% to -35%).

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