Cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors from 1980 to 2010: a comparative risk assessment

Background High blood pressure, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, and BMI are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and some of these factors also increase the risk of chronic kidney disease and diabetes. We estimated mortality from cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes that was attributable to these four cardiometabolic risk factors for all countries and regions from 1980 to 2010. Methods We used data for exposure to risk factors by country, age group, and sex from pooled analyses of populationbased health surveys. We obtained relative risks for the eff ects of risk factors on cause-specifi c mortality from metaanalyses of large prospective studies. We calculated the population attributable fractions for- each risk factor alone, and for the combination of all risk factors, accounting for multicausality and for mediation of the eff ects of BMI by the other three risks. We calculated attributable deaths by multiplying the cause-specifi c population attributable fractions by the number of disease-specifi c deaths. We obtained cause-specifi c mortality from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study. We propagated the uncertainties of all the inputs to the fi nal estimates. Findings In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for deaths due to cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes in every region, causing more than 40% of worldwide deaths from these diseases; high BMI and glucose were each responsible for about 15% of deaths, and high cholesterol for more than 10%. After accounting for multicausality, 63% (10\ub78 million deaths, 95% CI 10\ub71\u201311\ub75) of deaths from these diseases in 2010 were attributable to the combined eff ect of these four metabolic risk factors, compared with 67% (7\ub71 million deaths, 6\ub76\u20137\ub76) in 1980. The mortality burden of high BMI and glucose nearly doubled from 1980 to 2010. At the country level, age-standardised death rates from these diseases attributable to the combined eff ects of these four risk factors surpassed 925 deaths per 100 000 for men in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, but were less than 130 deaths per 100 000 for women and less than 200 for men in some high-income countries including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Spain. Interpretation The salient features of the cardiometabolic disease and risk factor epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century are high blood pressure and an increasing eff ect of obesity and diabetes. The mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors has shifted from high-income to low-income and middle-income countries. Lowering cardiometabolic risks through dietary, behavioural, and pharmacological interventions should be a part of the globalresponse to non-communicable diseases

Formicidae (Hymenoptera) community in corpses at different altitudes in a semiarid wild environment in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula

The Formicidae are considered crucial components of the entomosarcosaprophagous fauna because they can delay the decomposition process, cause tissue postmortem damage and produce bloodstain patterns that may confuse investigations. Moreover, some studies suggest that the Formicidae can act as environmental and seasonal indicators. However, studies on this group on vertebrate carcasses are scarce, especially in the Iberian Peninsula and the southwest of Europe. Thus, comparative studies at different altitudes in a protected wild mountain area could provide useful information on its composition in such environmental conditions, their role as environmental indicators and their forensic implications. For this reason, the Formicidae sarcosaprophagous community was studied at three different altitudes, between 400 and 1,500 m, in a wild mountainous area in the southeast of Spain using a modified Schoenly trap, with two pitfall traps inside, baited with 5 kg piglets (Sus scrofa L.). This work illustrates an approach to the community of the Formicidae, as a representative of the sarcosaprophagous community in an altitudinal gradient, showing a great variability in its composition. Furthermore, when comparing our results with other studies carried out in the Iberian Peninsula, we are able to suggest certain species with a potential utility as geographic and environmental indicators. Thus, Iberoformica subrufa, Lasius brunneus, Lasius cinereus and Camponotus sylvaticus are species of special interest as they appeared in either one of the sampled areas or in the same region