| 1. |
- Lind, Lars, et al.
(author)
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Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)
- 2021
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In: eLife. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions.
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| 2. |
- Bixby, H., et al.
(author)
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Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults
- 2019
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 569:7755, s. 260-4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.
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| 3. |
- Mishra, A, et al.
(author)
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Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents' growth and development
- 2023
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 615:7954, s. 874-883
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified.
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| 11. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(author)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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In: eLIFE. - 2050-084X. ; 5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.522.7) and 16.5 cm (13.319.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 12. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(author)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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In: eLIFE. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 5
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3– 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8– 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 14. |
- Apponi, A., et al.
(author)
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Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in the PTOLEMY project : A theory update
- 2022
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In: Physical Review D. - : American Physical Society. - 2470-0010 .- 2470-0029. ; 106:5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We discuss the consequences of the quantum uncertainty on the spectrum of the electron emitted by the beta-processes of a tritium atom bound to a graphene sheet. We analyze quantitatively the issue recently raised by Cheipesh, Cheianov, and Boyarsky [Phys. Rev. D 104, 116004 (2021)], and discuss the relevant timescales and the degrees of freedom that can contribute to the intrinsic spread in the electron energy. We perform careful calculations of the potential between tritium and graphene with different coverages and geometries. With this at hand, we propose possible avenues to mitigate the effect of the quantum uncertainty.
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| 15. |
- Betti, M. G., et al.
(author)
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Neutrino physics with the PTOLEMY project : active neutrino properties and the light sterile case
- 2019
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 1475-7516. ; :7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The PTOLEMY project aims to develop a scalable design for a Cosmic Neutrino Background (CNB) detector, the first of its kind and the only one conceived that can look directly at the image of the Universe encoded in neutrino background produced in the first second after the Big Bang. The scope of the work for the next three years is to complete the conceptual design of this detector and to validate with direct measurements that the non-neutrino backgrounds are below the expected cosmological signal. In this paper we discuss in details the theoretical aspects of the experiment and its physics goals. In particular, we mainly address three issues. First we discuss the sensitivity of PTOLEMY to the standard neutrino mass scale. We then study the perspectives of the experiment to detect the CNB via neutrino capture on tritium as a function of the neutrino mass scale and the energy resolution of the apparatus. Finally, we consider an extra sterile neutrino with mass in the eV range, coupled to the active states via oscillations, which has been advocated in view of neutrino oscillation anomalies. This extra state would contribute to the tritium decay spectrum, and its properties, mass and mixing angle, could be studied by analyzing the features in the beta decay electron spectrum.
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| 16. |
- Apponi, A., et al.
(author)
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Implementation and optimization of the PTOLEMY transverse drift electromagnetic filter
- 2022
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In: Journal of Instrumentation. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 1748-0221. ; 17:5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The PTOLEMY transverse drift filter is a new concept to enable precision analysis of the energy spectrum of electrons near the tritium beta-decay endpoint. This paper details the implementation and optimization methods for successful operation of the filter for electrons with a known pitch angle. We present the first demonstrator that produces the required magnetic field properties with an iron return-flux magnet. Two methods for the setting of filter electrode voltages are detailed. The challenges of low-energy electron transport in cases of low field are discussed, such as the growth of the cyclotron radius with decreasing magnetic field, which puts a ceiling on filter performance relative to fixed filter dimensions. Additionally, low pitch angle trajectories are dominated by motion parallel to the magnetic field lines and introduce non-adiabatic conditions and curvature drift. To minimize these effects and maximize electron acceptance into the filter, we present a three-potential-well design to simultaneously drain the parallel and transverse kinetic energies throughout the length of the filter. These optimizations are shown, in simulation, to achieve low-energy electron transport from a 1 T iron core (or 3 T superconducting) starting field with initial kinetic energy of 18.6 keV drained to < 10 eV (< 1 eV) in about 80 cm. This result for low field operation paves the way for the first demonstrator of the PTOLEMY spectrometer for measurement of electrons near the tritium endpoint to be constructed at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in Italy.
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| 17. |
- Betti, M. G., et al.
(author)
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A design for an electromagnetic filter for precision energy measurements at the tritium endpoint
- 2019
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In: Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0146-6410 .- 1873-2224. ; 106, s. 120-131
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present a detailed description of the electromagnetic filter for the PTOLEMY project to directly detect the Cosmic Neutrino Background (CNB). Starting with an initial estimate for the orbital magnetic moment, the higher-order drift process of E x B is configured to balance the gradient-B drift motion of the electron in such a way as to guide the trajectory into the standing voltage potential along the mid-plane of the filter. As a function of drift distance along the length of the filter, the filter zooms in with exponentially increasing precision on the transverse velocity component of the electron kinetic energy. This yields a linear dimension for the total filter length that is exceptionally compact compared to previous techniques for electromagnetic filtering. The parallel velocity component of the electron kinetic energy oscillates in an electrostatic harmonic trap as the electron drifts along the length of the filter. An analysis of the phase-space volume conservation validates the expected behavior of the filter from the adiabatic invariance of the orbital magnetic moment and energy conservation following Liouville's theorem for Hamiltonian systems.
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| 18. |
- Blumen, Sergiu C, et al.
(author)
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Aggressive familial ALS with unusual brain MRI and a SOD1 gene mutation.
- 2010
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In: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and other Motor Neuron Disorders. - : Informa Healthcare. - 1466-0822 .- 1743-4483. ; 11:1-2, s. 228-231
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We studied two sisters with rapidly progressing ALS starting at the ages of 46 and 48 years and leading to death after 14 months. Both fulfilled the El Escorial criteria for definite ALS and had marked upper motor neuron (UMN) predominance. Brain MRI, on fluid attenuation recovery (FLAIR) mode, showed outstanding hyperintensities of the precentral gyrus, centrum semiovale, corona radiata and along the corticospinal pathways in the brainstem. Screening for the SOD1 gene disclosed, at codon 140, a base substitution of adenine for thymine (GGT>CCA) known as the A140A 'silent' mutation since it does not change the amino acid (alanine) encoded for at that position. The severe UMN involvement and the fast progression of the disease may correlate with the MRI findings. It is also possible that the A140A mutation is not incidental; the mutated mRNA might be cytotoxic.
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