Genetic-environmental interactions in the variation of blood pressure in Tecumseh, Michigan

Emigrants and those who die were found to have higher age adjusted systolic BP than non-migrants and emigrants showed higher BP than non-migrants. For two single-locus cases, and their combined two-locus marker case, the BP differences among marker phenotypes were not homogeneous between non-migrants and those who die and between emigrants and those who die. The BP of emigrant marker phenotypes for the non-migrant-emigrant contrast varied in the same direction as the BP of marker phenotypes of those who died in the non-migrant-die contrast, but in the former contrast the marker phenotype-subsample interaction was not judged statistically significant by the available samples. This may result from the lack of specificity in the emigrant sub-sample for comparison which is presumed to have experienced high levels of stress.Our data suggests that life crises which generate stress exaggerate differences in BP between genotypes of loci which affect the level or rate of rise of BP. The average effects of both Rh-C and Kell alleles for emigrants resembled that of those who die more closely than that of non-migrants. These results are consistent with an explanation which attributes to stress encountered in life crises a major role in accounting for phenotypic differences in BP. Its effect is to raise BP in certain predisposed genotypes which are marked by dosages of the c and k alleles.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22800/1/0000357.pd

La discusión política sobre mortalidad infantil en Chile durante la década de 1930. Elementos para una aproximación histórico política

The aim of this paper is to understand how the Chilean political discussion was raised against the problems of infant mortality during the 1930s The sources used are mainly Diaries of Sessions of National Congress with some reports of the State on issues relating to public health and scientific papers of the time on the problem.Este artículo busca comprender cómo la discusión política chilena se planteó frente a los problemas de la mortalidad infantil durante la década de 1930 Las fuentes que se utilizarán serán principalmente los Diarios de Sesiones del Congreso Nacional junto con algunos informes del Estado sobre temas relativos a la salud pública y artículos científicos de la época sobre el problema en cuestión

The effect of sample attrition on the frequency distribution of blood pressure and genetic marker phenotypes representing a natural unselected community: Tecumseh, Michigan

Highly significant differences in mean age, blood pressure and phenotype frequency distributions between the non-migrants and “emigrants” of a total unselected community sample were discovered. Use of the mean of BP scores collected from epidemiologic surveys over a period of time as an individual score allows sample attrition to produce both a genetically and demographically biased sample of a population intended to represent an unselected community of people. Multiple regression analyses estimated the contribution of an individual's age, genotype and mobility out of the sample to predicting blood pressure variation. Variation in blood pressure means among certain marker phenotype classes was greater in those who leave than in those who stay, but only the upper portion of the pressure distribution contributed to this relationship. A genetic-environment interaction is suggested.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/37562/1/1330440120_ftp.pd

Life satisfaction and confidence in national institutions: evidence from South America

A number of South American countries experienced turbulent democratic, political and economic upheaval over the last 40 years in the form of coup d’états in the 1970s, tumultuous elections, and repeated severe economic crises, some of which happened fairly recently. Starting in 2010, a number of court proceedings across the region have made past military coup d’états the focus of national conversations. South American citizens may, therefore, have lost confidence in national institutions that have repeatedly disappointed their trust and expectations; a situation with potentially detrimental effects on their well-being. Using eight waves of the Gallup World Poll collected between 2009 and 2016 across ten South American countries, we investigate to what extent people’s confidence in financial institutions, the honesty of elections, the military, the judicial system, the national government and the police is associated with people’s current and expectation of future life satisfaction. We find that people who report confidence in these six institutions rate their current and expected life satisfaction, on average, to be higher than those who lack these types of institutional confidence, even after controlling for demographic factors and macroeconomic indicators. In addition, we investigate changes over time for all six measures of confidence in institutions as well as for current and expectation of future life satisfaction. Our results suggest that governments’ investments in well-functioning institutions may contribute positively to subjective well-being in a society. However, our analysis is correlational and we thus cannot rule out reverse causality

Iron status and Helicobacter pylori infection in symptomatic children: an international multi-centered study

Objective:Iron deficiency (ID) and iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) are global major public health problems, particularly in developing countries. Whilst an association between H. pylori infection and ID/IDA has been proposed in the literature, currently there is no consensus. We studied the effects of H. pylori infection on ID/IDA in a cohort of children undergoing upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for upper abdominal pain in two developing and one developed country.Methods:In total 311 children (mean age 10.7±3.2 years) from Latin America - Belo Horizonte/Brazil (n = 125), Santiago/Chile (n = 105) - and London/UK (n = 81), were studied. Gastric and duodenal biopsies were obtained for evaluation of histology and H. pylori status and blood samples for parameters of ID/IDA.Results:The prevalence of H. pylori infection was 27.7% being significantly higher (p<0.001) in Latin America (35%) than in UK (7%). Multiple linear regression models revealed H. pylori infection as a significant predictor of low ferritin and haemoglobin concentrations in children from Latin-America. A negative correlation was observed between MCV (r = -0.26; p = 0.01) and MCH (r = -0.27; p = 0.01) values and the degree of antral chronic inflammation, and between MCH and the degree of corpus chronic (r = -0.29, p = 0.008) and active (r = -0.27, p = 0.002) inflammation.Conclusions:This study demonstrates that H. pylori infection in children influences the serum ferritin and haemoglobin concentrations, markers of early depletion of iron stores and anaemia respectively