A population based study on cardiovascular diseases in Northwest Russia : the Arkhangelsk study 2000

This study was designed and carried out in Arkhangelsk to investigate reasons for high CVD mortality/morbidity in Northwest of Russia. It revealed that the high CVD morbidity and mortality in this population could not be explained only by the classical CVD risk factors (blood pressure, serum lipids, smoking). Lipid profile was especially favorable. These results from the Arkhangelsk study are consistent with findings from other studies in Russia. High alcohol consumption, psychosocial distress and poor nutrition with low intake of fresh fruits/vegetables emerged as more important factors than the classical CVD risk factors. A substantial part of this population had hazardous or harmful level of alcohol consumption, mainly in the form of binge vodka drinking. Vodka consumption showed a linear positive association with marker of inflammation — hsCRP, which is a known indicator of CVD risk. The study population had also high levels of GGT a serum marker of high alcohol consumption. GGT levels in both sexes were more than twice as high as found in comparable studies from other countries. Participants with high GGT levels had higher risk score for CVD. Alcohol consumption was an important risk determinant for non-fatal stroke, and showed a non-significant tendency for positive association with CVD-death. A large part of the study population reported psychosocial distress (depression, anxiety and sleeping problems) and poor nutrition with 10w consumption of fruits/vegetables. Psychosocial distress was strongly associated with low socioeconomic status, poor nutrition and high alcohol consumption, as well as with CVD. Low fruits/vegetables consumption was independently associated with CVD death. These findings underline the importance of psychosocial and nutritional variables for CVD epidemiology in Russia. High prevalence of psychosocial distress, poor nutrition and high alcohol consumption probably reflects the high level of individual poverty in this population. In a society experiencing large socioeconomic problems these factors probably act in chain. Our results indicate that the combination of these factors may play a major role in the CVD epidemic in post-soviet Russia

Pengaruh Kinerja Lingkungan, Corporate Social Responsibility, Kualitas Laba dan Kepemilikan Manajerial Terhadap Nilai Perusahaan Manufaktur di Indonesia

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of environmental performance, Corporate Social Responsibility, earnings quality and managerial ownership on the value of manufacturing companies. The sample used in this study is a manufacturing company listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) 2017-2019. The data analysis technique used in this study is multiple linear regression analysis using SPSS 22. The results of this study indicate that environmental performance and Corporate Social Responsibility have an effect on firm value, while earnings quality and managerial ownership have no effect on firm valu

Longitudinal changes in vitamin D concentrations and the association with type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Tromsø Study

Aim We aimed to investigate the relationship between pre- and post-diagnostic 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) over a period of 30 years in individuals who developed T2DM compared to healthy controls. Methods This case–control study included 254 participants with blood samples collected at fve diferent time-points (T1–T5) between 1986 and 2016. Of the 254 participants, 116 were diagnosed with T2DM between T3 and T4, and were considered cases; the remaining 138 were controls. Linear mixed regression models were used to examine pre- and post-diagnostic changes in 25(OH)D concentrations, and logistic regression was used to examine associations between these concentrations and T2DM at each time-point. Results 25(OH)D concentrations at diferent time-points and the longitudinal change in concentrations difered between cases and controls, and by sex. For women, each 5-nmol/l increase in 25(OH)D concentrations was inversely associated with T2DM at T3 (odds-ratio, OR, 0.79), whereas for men, this same increase was positively associated with T2DM at T1 (OR 1.12). Cases experienced a signifcant decrease in pre-diagnostic 25(OH)D concentrations (p value <0.01 for women, p value =0.02 for men) and a signifcant increase in post-diagnostic 25(OH)D concentrations (p value <0.01 for women, p value =0.01 for men). As such, each 1-unit increase in month-specifc z-score change between T1 and T3 was signifcantly inversely associated with T2DM (OR 0.51 for women, OR 0.52 for men), and each such increase between T3 and T5 was signifcantly positively associated with T2DM in women (OR 2.48). Conclusions 25(OH)D concentrations seem to be afected by disease progression and type 2 diabetes diagnosis

Evidence for a Direct Harmful Effect of Alcohol on Myocardial Health: A Large Cross-Sectional Study of Consumption Patterns and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Biomarkers From Northwest Russia, 2015 to 2017.

Background Alcohol drinking is an increasingly recognized risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, there are few studies of the impact of harmful and hazardous drinking on biomarkers of myocardial health. We conducted a study in Russia to investigate the impact of heavy drinking on biomarkers of cardiac damage and inflammation. Methods and Results The Know Your Heart study recruited a random sample of 2479 participants from the population of northwest Russia (general population) plus 278 patients (narcology clinic subsample) with alcohol problems. The general population sample was categorized into harmful drinkers, hazardous drinkers, nonproblem drinkers, and nondrinkers, according to self-reported level of alcohol consumption, whereas the narcology clinic sample was treated as the separate group in the analysis. Measurements were made of the following: (1) high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, (2) NT-proBNP (N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide), and (3) hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein). The narcology clinic subsample had the most extreme drinking pattern and the highest levels of all 3 biomarkers relative to nonproblem drinkers in the general population: high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T was elevated by 10.3% (95% CI, 3.7%-17.4%), NT-proBNP by 46.7% (95% CI, 26.8%-69.8%), and hsCRP by 69.2% (95% CI, 43%-100%). In the general population sample, NT-proBNP was 31.5% (95% CI, 3.4%-67.2%) higher among harmful drinkers compared with nonproblem drinkers. Overall, NT-proBNP and hsCRP increased with increasing intensity of alcohol exposure (test of trend P<0.001). Conclusions These results support the hypothesis that heavy alcohol drinking has an adverse effect on cardiac structure and function that may not be driven by atherosclerosis

Извлечение именованных сущностей из русскоязычных документов с различной выраженностью структуры

This work is devoted to solving the problem of recognizing named entities for Russian-language texts based on the CRF model. Two sets of data were considered: documents on refinancing with a good document structure, semi-structured texts of court records. The model was tested under various sets of text features and CRF parameters (optimization algorithms). In average for all entities, the best F-measure value for structured documents was 0.99, and for semi-structured ones 0.86.Данная работа посвящена решению задачи распознавания именованных сущностей для русскоязычных текстов на основе модели CRF. Рассмотрены два набора данных: документы о рефинансировании с хорошей структурой документа, слабоструктурированные тексты судебных протоколов. Было проведено тестирование модели при различных наборах текстовых признаков и параметрах CRF (алгоритмов оптимизации). В среднем по всем сущностям лучшее значение F"=меры для структурированных документов составило 0.99, а для слабоструктурированных 0.86

What factors explain the much higher diabetes prevalence in Russia compared with Norway? Major sex differences in the contribution of adiposity

INTRODUCTION: Compared with many other countries Russia has a high prevalence of diabetes in men and women. However, contrary to what is found in most other populations, the risk is greater among women than men. The reasons for this are unclear. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Prevalence and risk factors for diabetes at ages 40-69 years were compared in two population-based studies: Know Your Heart (KYH) (Russia, 2015-2018, n=4121) and the seventh wave of the Tromsø Study (Tromsø 7) (Norway, 2015-2016, n=17 649). Diabetes was defined by the level of glycated hemoglobin and/or self-reported diabetes and/or diabetes medication use. Marginal structural models were used to estimate the role of key risk factors for diabetes in differences between the studies. RESULTS: Age-standardized prevalence of diabetes was higher in KYH compared with Tromsø 7 in men (11.6% vs 6.2%) and in women (13.2% vs 4.3%). Age-adjusted ORs for diabetes in KYH compared with Tromsø 7 were 2.01 (95% CI 1.68 to 2.40) for men and 3.66 (95% CI 3.13 to 4.26) for women. Adiposity (body mass index and waist circumference) explained none of this effect for men but explained 46.0% (39.6, 53.8) for women. Addition of smoking and C reactive protein, as further mediators, slightly increased the percentage explained of the difference between studies to 55.5% (46.5, 66.0) for women but only to 9.9% (-0.6, 20.8) for men. CONCLUSIONS: Adiposity is a key modifiable risk factor that appears to explain half of the almost threefold higher female prevalence of diabetes in Russia compared with Norway, but none of the twofold male difference

Why does Russia have such high cardiovascular mortality rates? Comparisons of blood-based biomarkers with Norway implicate non-ischaemic cardiac damage.

BACKGROUND: Russia has one of the highest rates of mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD). At age 35-69 years, they are eight times higher than in neighbouring Norway. Comparing profiles of blood-based CVD biomarkers between these two populations can help identify reasons for this substantial difference in risk. METHODS: We compared age-standardised mean levels of CVD biomarkers for men and women aged 40-69 years measured in two cross-sectional population-based studies: Know Your Heart (KYH) (Russia, 2015-2018; n=4046) and the seventh wave of the Tromsø Study (Tromsø 7) (Norway, 2015-2018; n=17 646). A laboratory calibration study was performed to account for inter-laboratory differences. RESULTS: Levels of total, low-density lipoprotein-, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and triglycerides were comparable in KYH and Tromsø 7 studies. N-terminal pro-b-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were higher in KYH compared with Tromsø 7 (NT-proBNP was higher by 54.1% (95% CI 41.5% to 67.8%) in men and by 30.8% (95% CI 22.9% to 39.2%) in women; hs-cTnT-by 42.4% (95% CI 36.1% to 49.0%) in men and by 68.1% (95% CI 62.4% to 73.9%) in women; hsCRP-by 33.3% (95% CI 26.1% to 40.8%) in men and by 35.6% (95% CI 29.0% to 42.6%) in women). Exclusion of participants with pre-existing coronary heart disease (279 men and 282 women) had no substantive effect. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in cholesterol fractions cannot explain the difference in CVD mortality rate between Russia and Norway. A non-ischemic pathway to the cardiac damage reflected by raised NT-proBNP and hs-cTnT is likely to contribute to high CVD mortality in Russia

Heavy alcohol drinking and subclinical echocardiographic abnormalities of structure and function.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study is to assess changes in heart structure and function associated with heavy alcohol use by comparing echocardiographic indices in a population-based sample to those in patients admitted to an inpatient facility with severe alcohol problems. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used data from the Know Your Heart study (2015-2017) which is a cross-sectional study that recruited 2479 participants aged 35-69 years from the general population of the city of Arkhangelsk in Northwest Russia and 278 patients from the Arkhangelsk Regional Psychiatric Hospital with a primary diagnosis related to chronic alcohol use (narcology clinic subsample). The drinking patterns of the population-based sample were characterised in detail. We used regression models controlling for age, sex, smoking, education and waist to hip ratio to evaluate the differences in echocardiographic indices in participants with different drinking patterns. The means of left ventricular end-diastolic diameter and indexed left atrial systolic diameter were increased among heavy drinkers (narcology clinic subsample), while mean left ventricular ejection fraction was decreased in this group compared with the population-based sample. In contrast, the harmful and hazardous drinkers in the population-based sample did not differ from non-problem drinkers with respect to echocardiographic indices of systolic and diastolic function. CONCLUSIONS: Extremely heavy drinking is associated with a specific set of structural and functional abnormalities of the heart that may be regarded as precursors of alcohol-related dilated cardiomyopathy

Macrophages from naked mole-rat possess distinct immunometabolic signatures upon polarization

The naked mole-rat (NMR) is a unique long-lived rodent which is highly resistant to age-associated disorders and cancer. The immune system of NMR possesses a distinct cellular composition with the prevalence of myeloid cells. Thus, the detailed phenotypical and functional assessment of NMR myeloid cell compartment may uncover novel mechanisms of immunoregulation and healthy aging. In this study gene expression signatures, reactive nitrogen species and cytokine production, as well as metabolic activity of classically (M1) and alternatively (M2) activated NMR bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) were examined. Polarization of NMR macrophages under pro-inflammatory conditions led to expected M1 phenotype characterized by increased pro-inflammatory gene expression, cytokine production and aerobic glycolysis, but paralleled by reduced production of nitric oxide (NO). Under systemic LPS-induced inflammatory conditions NO production also was not detected in NMR blood monocytes. Altogether, our results indicate that NMR macrophages are capable of transcriptional and metabolic reprogramming under polarizing stimuli, however, NMR M1 possesses species-specific signatures as compared to murine M1, implicating distinct adaptations in NMR immune system