Demographic and behavioural correlates of energy drink consumption

Abstract Objective: Energy drinks are consumed for a variety of reasons, including to boost mental alertness and energy. We assessed associations between demographic factors and various high-risky behaviours with energy drink consumption as they may be linked to adverse health events. Design: We conducted cross-sectional analysis including basic descriptive and multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analyses to characterise demographic and behavioural factors (including diet quality, binge drinking and illicit drug use, among others obtained via questionnaires) in relation to energy drink consumption. Setting: We used data from two large US-based cohorts. Participants: 46 390 participants from Nurses’ Health Study 3 (NHS3, n 37 302; ages 16–31) and Growing Up Today Study (GUTS, n 9088, ages 20–55). Results: Of the 46 390 participants, 13·2 % reported consuming ≥ 1 energy drink every month. Several risky behaviours were associated with energy drink use, including illegal drug use (pooled OR, pOR: 1·45, 95 % CI: 1·16, 1·81), marijuana use (pOR: 1·49, 95 % CI: 1·28, 1·73), smoking (pOR: 1·88. 95 % CI: 1·55, 2·29), tanning bed use (pOR: 2·31, 95 % CI: 1·96, 2·72) and binge drinking (pOR: 2·53, 95 % CI: 2·09, 3·07). Other factors, such as high BMI, e-cigarette use and poor diet quality were found to be significantly associated with higher energy drink consumption (P values < 0·001). Conclusions: Our findings show that energy drink consumption and high-risk behaviours may be related, which could potentially serve as not only as a talking point for providers to address in outreach and communications with patients, but also a warning sign for medical and other health practitioners

A genetic algorithm-Bayesian network approach for the analysis of metabolomics and spectroscopic data: application to the rapid detection of Bacillus spores and identification of Bacillus species

Background The rapid identification of Bacillus spores and bacterial identification are paramount because of their implications in food poisoning, pathogenesis and their use as potential biowarfare agents. Many automated analytical techniques such as Curie-point pyrolysis mass spectrometry (Py-MS) have been used to identify bacterial spores giving use to large amounts of analytical data. This high number of features makes interpretation of the data extremely difficult We analysed Py-MS data from 36 different strains of aerobic endospore-forming bacteria encompassing seven different species. These bacteria were grown axenically on nutrient agar and vegetative biomass and spores were analyzed by Curie-point Py-MS. Results We develop a novel genetic algorithm-Bayesian network algorithm that accurately identifies sand selects a small subset of key relevant mass spectra (biomarkers) to be further analysed. Once identified, this subset of relevant biomarkers was then used to identify Bacillus spores successfully and to identify Bacillus species via a Bayesian network model specifically built for this reduced set of features. Conclusions This final compact Bayesian network classification model is parsimonious, computationally fast to run and its graphical visualization allows easy interpretation of the probabilistic relationships among selected biomarkers. In addition, we compare the features selected by the genetic algorithm-Bayesian network approach with the features selected by partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The classification accuracy results show that the set of features selected by the GA-BN is far superior to PLS-DA

Estrogen, catechol-O-methyltransferase genotypes, and bladder cancer risk in Egypt

Objectives. To examine associations between bladder cancer risk and (1) reproductive history-related estrogen exposure among Egyptian women, and (2) polymorphisms of the gene encoding the catechol estrogen-metabolizing enzyme, catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), among Egyptian women and men, while taking into account this malignancy’s established risk factors. Methods. We used questionnaire and genotype data from an ongoing multicenter case-control study in Egypt. Cases confirmed to have either of the two predominant bladder cancer types, urothelial carcinoma (UC) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and controls, frequency-matched on sex, age, and residence, were included. Results. For Objective (1), we recruited 619 nonsmoking women (429 controls, 190 cases). We found significant associations between increased bladder cancer risk and early menopause (at 18 y old), environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure, and schistosomiasis history. Among postmenopausal women (317 controls, 171 cases), the association between early menopause and increased risk remained significant [adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 1.8; 95% CI: 1.1, 2.8] in the final logistic regression model, which included the variables above, age, residence, and number of pregnancies. For Objective (2), we recruited 952 participants (527 controls, 425 cases). We observed decreased odds of having either bladder cancer type among men with Val/Met or Met/Met genotypes, which encode intermediate- and low-activity enzyme forms, respectively, even after adjusting for covariates, including smoking and schistosomiasis history (AOR: 0.6; 95% CI: 0.4, 0.97); the association was significant for SCC (AOR 0.5; 95% CI: 0.3, 0.9) and marginally significant for UC (AOR: 0.7; 95% CI: 0.4, 1.1). We detected no significant association between bladder cancer risk and COMT genotypes among postmenopausal women, but the association between reduced SCC risk and Val/Met or Met/Met genotypes approached significance among premenopausal women (n = 43). Conclusions. We found that early menopause was associated with increased odds of having bladder cancer in postmenopausal Egyptian women and that Val/Met or Met/Met COMT genotypes (encoding intermediate- or low-activity enzyme forms) were associated with decreased odds of having SCC in Egyptian men, and possibly also in premenopausal women. These results provide evidence that estrogen exposure and metabolism contribute to bladder cancer development

Perils of using random-digit dialing to recruit older urban African Americans for survey research

Presentation at: The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APH