| 1. |
- Griswold, Max G., et al.
(författare)
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Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
- 2018
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Elsevier. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 392:10152, s. 1015-1035
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older.Methods: Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health.Findings: Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2.2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1.5-3.0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6.8% (5.8-8.0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15-49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3.8% (95% UI 3.2-4-3) of female deaths and 12.2% (10.8-13-6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15-49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2.3% (95% UI 2.0-2.6) and male attributable DALYs were 8.9% (7.8-9.9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1.4% [95% UI 1. 0-1. 7] of total deaths), road injuries (1.2% [0.7-1.9]), and self-harm (1.1% [0.6-1.5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27.1% (95% UI 21.2-33.3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18.9% (15.3-22.6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0.0-0.8) standard drinks per week.Interpretation: Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.
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| 4. |
- Stevanovic, Dejan, et al.
(författare)
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Cross-cultural similarities and differences in reporting autistic symptoms in toddlers: A study synthesizing M-CHAT(-R) data from ten countries
- 2022
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Ingår i: Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. - : Elsevier BV. - 1750-9467. ; 95
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: This study aimed to evaluate the endorsement rates of M-CHAT(-R) items by parents/ caregivers of toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) synthesizing data from ten countries: Albania, Chile, Georgia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Serbia, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.Method: Data were aggregated for toddlers aged 14-36 months who participated in previous studies or completed clinical screening. An item with < 30% of endorsements was classified as low endorsement, an item falling within the range of 30-60% as moderate endorsement, and an item with > 60% as high endorsement.Results: All items had a low endorsement rate in at least one country and moderate to high in others. Of 20 items, 14 had a moderate to high endorsement rate in seven to nine countries. Of particular relevance are items with moderate to high endorsement rates in all countries excluding Malaysia, such as points to get help, points to show, brings things to show, follows a point, follows your gaze, and understands what is said. On the other hand, makes eye contact, responds to name, hearing concerns, and reciprocal smile were interpreted differently across the countries.Conclusions: This study showed differences in parent/caregiver responding to M-CHAT(-R) items across ten countries, which may indicate cross-country variations in the recognition and evaluation of autistic symptoms in toddlers. Items related to joint attention, social engagement, and language comprehension were reported in a similar manner across countries and could be interpreted as universal autistic symptoms in toddlers.
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| 5. |
- Stevanovic, D., et al.
(författare)
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Measurement invariance of the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) across six countries
- 2021
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Ingår i: Autism Research. - : Wiley. - 1939-3792 .- 1939-3806. ; 14:12, s. 2544-2554
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) is a simple and inexpensive tool for Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessments, with evidenced psychometric data from different countries. However, it is still unclear whether ASD symptoms are measured the same way across different societies and world regions with this tool, since data on its cross-cultural validity are lacking. This study evaluated the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the CARS among children with ASD from six countries, for whom data were aggregated from previous studies in India (n = 101), Jamaica (n = 139), Mexico (n = 72), Spain (n = 99), Turkey (n = 150), and the United States of America (n = 186). We analyzed the approximate measurement invariance based on Bayesian structural equation modeling. The model did not fit the data and its measurement invariance did not hold, with all items found non-invariant across the countries. Items related to social communication and interaction (i.e., relating to people, imitation, emotional response, and verbal and nonverbal communication) displayed lower levels of cross-country non-invariance compared to items about stereotyped behaviors/sensory sensitivity (i.e., body and object use, adaptation to change, or taste, smell, and touch response). This study found that the CARS may not provide cross-culturally valid ASD assessments. Thus, cross-cultural comparisons with the CARS should consider first which items operate differently across samples of interest, since its cross-cultural measurement non-invariance could be a source of cross-cultural variability in ASD presentations. Additional studies are needed before drawing valid recommendations in relation to the cultural sensitivity of particular items.
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| 6. |
- Birney, Ewan, et al.
(författare)
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Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 447:7146, s. 799-816
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the generation and analysis of functional data from multiple, diverse experiments performed on a targeted 1% of the human genome as part of the pilot phase of the ENCODE Project. These data have been further integrated and augmented by a number of evolutionary and computational analyses. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge about human genome function in several major areas. First, our studies provide convincing evidence that the genome is pervasively transcribed, such that the majority of its bases can be found in primary transcripts, including non-protein-coding transcripts, and those that extensively overlap one another. Second, systematic examination of transcriptional regulation has yielded new understanding about transcription start sites, including their relationship to specific regulatory sequences and features of chromatin accessibility and histone modification. Third, a more sophisticated view of chromatin structure has emerged, including its inter-relationship with DNA replication and transcriptional regulation. Finally, integration of these new sources of information, in particular with respect to mammalian evolution based on inter- and intra-species sequence comparisons, has yielded new mechanistic and evolutionary insights concerning the functional landscape of the human genome. Together, these studies are defining a path for pursuit of a more comprehensive characterization of human genome function.
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| 7. |
- Breznau, Nate, et al.
(författare)
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Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty
- 2022
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 119:44
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores how researchers analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each teams workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.
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| 8. |
- Mullin, Stephen, et al.
(författare)
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Ambroxol for the Treatment of Patients With Parkinson Disease With and Without Glucocerebrosidase Gene Mutations: A Nonrandomized, Noncontrolled Trial.
- 2020
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Ingår i: JAMA neurology. - : American Medical Association (AMA). - 2168-6157 .- 2168-6149. ; 77:4, s. 427-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mutations of the glucocerebrosidase gene, GBA1 (OMIM 606463), are the most important risk factor for Parkinson disease (PD). In vitro and in vivo studies have reported that ambroxol increases β-glucocerebrosidase (GCase) enzyme activity and reduces α-synuclein levels. These observations support a potential role for ambroxol therapy in modifying a relevant pathogenetic pathway in PD.To assess safety, tolerability, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) penetration, and target engagement of ambroxol therapy with GCase in patients with PD with and without GBA1 mutations.An escalating dose of oral ambroxol to 1.26 g per day.This single-center open-label noncontrolled clinical trial was conducted between January 11, 2017, and April 25, 2018, at the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neuroscience Centre, a dedicated clinical research facility and part of the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology in London, United Kingdom. Participants were recruited from established databases at the Royal Free London Hospital and National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. Twenty-four patients with moderate PD were evaluated for eligibility, and 23 entered the study. Of those, 18 patients completed the study; 1 patient was excluded (failed lumbar puncture), and 4 patients withdrew (predominantly lumbar puncture-related complications). All data analyses were performed from November 1 to December 14, 2018.Primary outcomes at 186 days were the detection of ambroxol in the CSF and a change in CSF GCase activity.Of the 18 participants (15 men [83.3%]; mean [SD] age, 60.2 [9.7] years) who completed the study, 17 (8 with GBA1 mutations and 9 without GBA1 mutations) were included in the primary analysis. Between days 0 and 186, a 156-ng/mL increase in the level of ambroxol in CSF (lower 95% confidence limit, 129 ng/mL; P < .001) was observed. The CSF GCase activity decreased by 19% (0.059 nmol/mL per hour; 95% CI, -0.115 to -0.002; P = .04). The ambroxol therapy was well tolerated, with no serious adverse events. An increase of 50 pg/mL (13%) in the CSF α-synuclein concentration (95% CI, 14-87; P = .01) and an increase of 88 ng/mol (35%) in the CSF GCase protein levels (95% CI, 40-137; P = .002) were observed. Mean (SD) scores on part 3 of the Movement Disorders Society Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale decreased (ie, improved) by 6.8 (7.1) points (95% CI, -10.4 to -3.1; P = .001). These changes were observed in patients with and without GBA1 mutations.The study results suggest that ambroxol therapy was safe and well tolerated; CSF penetration and target engagement of ambroxol were achieved, and CSF α-synuclein levels were increased. Placebo-controlled clinical trials are needed to examine whether ambroxol therapy is associated with changes in the natural progression of PD.ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02941822; EudraCT identifier: 2015-002571-24.
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| 9. |
- Ward, Heather A., et al.
(författare)
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Meat and haem iron intake in relation to glioma in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study
- 2018
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Ingår i: European Journal of Cancer Prevention. - : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. - 0959-8278 .- 1473-5709. ; 27:4, s. 379-383
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Diets high in red or processed meat have been associated positively with some cancers, and several possible underlying mechanisms have been proposed, including iron-related pathways. However, the role of meat intake in adult glioma risk has yielded conflicting findings because of small sample sizes and heterogeneous tumour classifications. The aim of this study was to examine red meat, processed meat and iron intake in relation to glioma risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study. In this prospective cohort study, 408751 individuals from nine European countries completed demographic and dietary questionnaires at recruitment. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine intake of red meat, processed meat, total dietary iron and haem iron in relation to incident glioma. During an average follow-up of 14.1 years, 688 incident glioma cases were diagnosed. There was no evidence that any of the meat variables (red, processed meat or subtypes of meat) or iron (total or haem) were associated with glioma; results were unchanged when the first 2 years of follow-up were excluded. This study suggests that there is no association between meat or iron intake and adult glioma. This is the largest prospective analysis of meat and iron in relation to glioma and as such provides a substantial contribution to a limited and inconsistent literature.
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