Publications by authors named "Pikhart H"

Background: Evidence on the impact of complex neighborhood environment, including air pollution, greenness, and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation (nSED) on cognitive health in older adults remains scarce. Both cognition and neighborhood environment are associated with physical activity, but little is known about the potential mediating role of physical activity in this association.

Methods: Cross-sectional data of the Czech arm of the HAPIEE cohort study examined 4,178 participants (55.

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  • The study investigates how prenatal vitamin B12 intake affects cognitive development in children, specifically focusing on language and IQ outcomes.
  • Data was analyzed from 5,151 mother-child pairs, with dietary information collected via a questionnaire, and children's development assessed at multiple ages.
  • Results indicated that higher maternal vitamin B12 intake correlates with improved language skills and verbal IQ in children, suggesting that insufficient B12 may hinder cognitive development, especially in speech and language.
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Objective: Environmental noise exposure is associated with adiposity. However, less is known about the individual vulnerability to environmental noise in abnormal adiposity development, particularly in relation to mental health. This study investigated the association between environmental noise exposure and four adiposity biomarkers and tested the moderation effect of depressive symptoms.

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  • Early life socioeconomic factors and adverse experiences can lead to overeating in children, which is linked to an increase in body mass index (BMI), suggesting the relationship may go both ways.* -
  • The study used data from over 5,000 children, assessing their BMI and overeating behaviors from ages 3 to 11, while examining predictors like maternal BMI, education, and financial stability.* -
  • Findings revealed that childhood BMI and perceived overeating are mutually influential over time, with maternal factors and adverse childhood experiences playing significant roles in this relationship.*
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  • - The study investigates the relationship between the FTO gene polymorphism (specifically rs17817449) and COVID-19 mortality, suggesting that this gene could influence how individuals respond to the virus due to its role in viral viability.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from 5,233 individuals aged 63-87, finding that GG homozygotes had a significantly higher risk of death from COVID-19 compared to those with at least one T allele (odds ratio = 2.01, P <0.01).
  • - The findings indicate that variations in the FTO gene are a notable factor in predicting mortality from COVID-19, particularly in Caucasian populations, while showing no impact on deaths from other causes.
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Background: This study investigates the association between frailty and mortality in Eastern European populations, which remains largely unexplored compared with Western Europe. The aim is to assess the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality associated with varying levels of frailty.

Methods: A prospective multicentre cohort study was conducted, involving random population samples from the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania.

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Background: Chronic exposure to air pollutants harms human health, and at a geographical level, concentrations of air pollutants are often associated with socioeconomic disadvantage.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of educational attainment and air pollution on lung function in older adults, and whether air pollution may mediate the effect of education.

Methods: The study included 6381 individuals (mean age 58.

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Exposures to social and environmental stressors arise individual behavioural response and thus indirectly affect cardiometabolic health. The aim of this study was to investigate several social and environmental stressors and the paths of their influence on cardiometabolic health. The data of 2154 participants (aged 25-64 years) from the cross-sectional population-based study were analysed.

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Aims: The 2021 European Society of Cardiology prevention guidelines recommend the use of (lifetime) risk prediction models to aid decisions regarding initiation of prevention. We aimed to update and systematically recalibrate the LIFEtime-perspective CardioVascular Disease (LIFE-CVD) model to four European risk regions for the estimation of lifetime CVD risk for apparently healthy individuals.

Methods And Results: The updated LIFE-CVD (i.

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Background: The number of older people with cognitive impairment is increasing worldwide. Impaired lung function might be associated with cognitive decline in older age; however, results from large longitudinal studies are lacking. In this study, we examined the longitudinal associations between pulmonary function and the trajectories of cognitive decline using prospective population-based SHARE data from 14 countries.

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Background: Biological aging reflects a decline in the functions and integrity of the human body that is closely related to chronological aging. A variety of biomarkers have been found to predict biological age. Biological age higher than chronological age (biological age acceleration) indicates an accelerated state of biological aging and a higher risk of premature morbidity and mortality.

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Background: The inverse association between education and obesity was previously found in numerous studies. This study aims to assess several possible mediators in the educational disparities in adiposity. We hypothesize the potential mediating role of lifestyle, socioeconomic, and mental health factors in the association between education and adiposity.

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Objective: Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of hospitalization and death among children. Compared to environmental factors, less attention in injury preventive efforts has been paid to how individual characteristics relate to the risk of injury. Using a large prospective cohort, the current study assessed the longitudinal impact of early-life temperament on the cumulative number of injuries until mid-adolescence.

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Aims: Impaired lung function has been strongly associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. We aimed to assess the additive prognostic value of spirometry indices to the risk estimation of CVD events in Eastern European populations in this study.

Methods: We randomly selected 14,061 individuals with a mean age of 59 ± 7.

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Purpose: Depression is a prevalent disorder with effects beyond mental health. A positive association with mortality has been mostly reported, however, evidence comes from a few high-income countries. This study aims to assess the association between depressive symptoms and all-cause mortality in the Chilean population and assess a potential secular effect in this association.

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Background: The ATHLOS consortium (Aging Trajectories of Health-Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies) used data from several aging cohorts to develop a novel scale measuring healthy aging comprehensively and globally (ATHLOS Healthy Aging Scale). In the present study, we assessed the predictive performance of the ATHLOS Healthy Aging Scale for all-cause mortality in middle-aged and older adults.

Methods: Data from the Polish and Czech HAPIEE (Health Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe) prospective cohorts were used.

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In the face of labour-force ageing, understanding labour-market characteristics and the health status of middle-aged and older workers is important for sustainable social and economic development. Self-rated health (SRH) is a widely-used instrument to detect health problems and predict mortality. This study investigated labour-market characteristics that may have an impact on the SRH among Chinese middle-aged and older workers, using data from the national baseline wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.

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Objectives: This study compared the relationships of social determinants with cardiometabolic risk in different socioeconomic contexts: sociopolitically unstable Venezuela (VE) and stable Czechia (CZ).

Design: cross-sectional analysis involving two population-based studies.

Setting: Brno, Czechia and 23 cities of Venezuela.

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Objective: Examine changes in SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity before and during the national vaccination campaign in the Czech Republic.

Design: Prospective national population-based cohort study.

Setting: Masaryk University, RECETOX, Brno.

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To investigate the individual and country-level characteristics associated with the presence and worsening of psychological distress during the first wave of the pandemic among the elderly in Europe. In June-August 2020, 52,310 non-institutionalized people aged 50+ in 27 SHARE participating countries reported whether feeling depressed, anxious, lonely, and having sleep problems. For this analysis, we combined these symptoms into a count variable reflecting psychological distress.

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Objective: Many children and adolescents get their first experience with alcohol in a family setting. Evidence suggests that parental supply of alcohol is a risk factor for drinking later in life. However, most of the previous studies have been conducted in Western countries.

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We evaluated associations between nine epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) scores and 18 cardiometabolic phenotypes using an Eastern European ageing population cohort richly annotated for a diverse set of phenotypes (subsample, = 306; aged 45-69 years). This was implemented by splitting the data into groups with positive and negative EAAs. We observed strong association between all EAA scores and sex, suggesting that any analysis of EAAs should be adjusted by sex.

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Work stress has been extensively supported to predict health outcomes like health behaviors. Evidence has linked work stress and personality independently to health, but the interrelationships between work stress and personality and their joint effects on health might deserve more attention in research. This study attempts to integrate recent developments in psychological research (diverse roles of personality in stress processes) into the well-established Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) model for work stress.

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Background: Numerous studies reported higher levels of mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic but only a minority used repeated measurements. We investigated change in depressive symptoms in the Czech ageing cohort and the impact of pre-existing and COVID-19-related stressors.

Methods: We used data on 2853 participants (mean age 73.

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Background: Social differences in lung functioning have been reported, but the role of socioeconomic position (SEP) at different stages of life is less well understood, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. This study addressed this question.

Methods: The analysis included 10 160 individuals aged 45-70 years from the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania.

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