Haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients admitted to intensive care units.

Hutchison and colleagues report a 10-year experience of dialysis patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) in the UK excluding Scotland. Their study is the largest published so far and raises issues of interest to both ICU physicians and nephrologists. Overall, the dialysis patients, although sicker on admission and having pre-existing co-morbidities, do as well as other ICU patients. Their clinical progress after leaving the ICU, however, is less good than for other ICU patients, raising the possibility that the patients might be leaving too early, or perhaps that dialysis patients should be discharged to a high-dependency unit rather than go direct to a renal ward. All in all, the paper by Hutchison and colleagues provides a useful foundation for planning the critical care management of dialysis patients in the UK and elsewhere

Sunjammer

No abstract available

Ethnic Differences in Associations Between Blood Pressure and Stroke in South Asian and European Men.

It is unknown whether associations between blood pressure (BP) and stroke vary between Europeans and South Asians, despite higher stroke rates in the latter. We report findings from a UK cohort study of 1375 European and 1074 South Asian men, not receiving antihypertensive medication, aged 40 to 69 years at baseline (1988-1991). Assessment included BP, blood tests, anthropometry, and questionnaires. Incident stroke was established at 20 years from death certification, hospital and primary care records, and participant report. South Asians had higher systolic BP, diastolic BP, and mean arterial pressure than Europeans, and similar pulse pressure. Associations between systolic BP or diastolic BP and stroke were stronger in South Asians than Europeans, after adjustment for age, smoking status, waist/hip ratio, total/high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol ratio, diabetes mellitus, fasting glucose, physical activity, and heart rate (systolic BP: Europeans [odds ratio, 1.22; 95% confidence interval, 0.98-1.51], South Asians [1.56; 1.24-1.95]; ethnic difference P=0.04; diastolic BP: Europeans [0.90; 0.71-1.13], South Asians [1.68; 1.32-2.15]; P<0.001). Hemodynamic correlates of stroke risk differed by ethnicity: in combined models, mean arterial pressure but not pulse pressure was detrimentally associated with stroke in South Asians, whereas the converse was true for Europeans. The combination of hyperglycemia and hypertension appeared particularly detrimental for South Asians. There are marked ethnic differences in associations between BP parameters and stroke. Undue focus on systolic BP for risk prediction, and current age and treatment thresholds may be inappropriate for individuals of South Asian ancestry

Thigh fat and muscle each contribute to excess cardiometabolic risk in South Asians, independent of visceral adipose tissue.

OBJECTIVE: To compare fat distribution and associations between fat depots and cardiometabolic traits in South Asians and Europeans. METHODS: Five hundred and fourteen South Asians and 669 Europeans, aged 56-86. Questionnaires, record review, blood testing, and coronary artery calcification scores provided diabetes and clinical plus subclinical coronary heart disease (CHD) diagnoses. Abdominal visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue, thigh subcutaneous adipose tissue (TSAT), intermuscular and intramuscular thigh fat and thigh muscle were measured by CT. RESULTS: Accounting for body size, South Asians had greater VAT and TSAT than Europeans, but less thigh muscle. Associations between depots and disease were stronger in South Asians than Europeans. In multivariable analyses in South Asians, VAT was positively associated with diabetes and CHD, while TSAT and thigh muscle were protective for diabetes, and thigh muscle for CHD. Differences in VAT and thigh muscle only partially explained the excess diabetes and CHD in South Asians versus Europeans. Insulin resistance did not account for the effects of TSAT or thigh muscle. CONCLUSIONS: Greater VAT and TSAT and lesser thigh muscle in South Asians contributed to ethnic differences in cardiometabolic disease. Effects of TSAT and thigh muscle were independent of insulin resistance

Diabetes risk and amino acid profiles: cross-sectional and prospective analyses of ethnicity, amino acids and diabetes in a South Asian and European cohort from the SABRE (Southall And Brent REvisited) Study.

Aims/hypothesis: South Asian individuals have an increased risk of diabetes compared with Europeans that is unexplained by obesity and traditional or established metabolic measures. Circulating amino acids (AAs) may provide additional explanatory insights. In a unique cohort of European and South Asian men, we compared cross-sectional associations between AAs, metabolic and obesity traits, and longitudinal associations with incident diabetes. / Methods: Nuclear magnetic spectroscopy was used to measure the baseline (1988–1991) levels of nine AAs in serum samples from a British population-based cohort of 1,279 European and 1,007 South Asian non-diabetic men aged 40–69 years. Follow-up was complete for 19 years in 801 European and 643 South Asian participants. / Results: The serum concentrations of isoleucine, phenylalanine, tyrosine and alanine were significantly higher in South Asian men, while cross-sectional correlations of AAs with glycaemia and insulin resistance were similar in the two ethnic groups. However, most AAs were less strongly correlated with measures of obesity in the South Asian participants. Diabetes developed in 227 (35%) South Asian and 113 (14%) European men. Stronger adverse associations were observed between branched chain and aromatic AAs and incident diabetes in South Asian men. Tyrosine was a particularly strong predictor of incident diabetes in South Asian individuals, even after adjustment for metabolic risk factors, including obesity and insulin resistance (adjusted OR for a 1 SD increment, 1.47, 95% CI 1.17,1.85, p = 0.001) compared with Europeans (OR 1.10, 0.87, 1.39, p = 0.4; p = 0.045 for ethnicity × tyrosine interaction). / Conclusions/interpretation: Branched chain and aromatic AAs, particularly tyrosine, may be a focus for identifying novel aetiological mechanisms and potential treatment targets for diabetes in South Asian populations and may contribute to their excess risk of diabetes

Invariants of Artinian Gorenstein Algebras and Isolated Hypersurface Singularities

We survey our recently proposed method for constructing biholomorphic invariants of quasihomogeneous isolated hypersurface singularities and, more generally, invariants of graded Artinian Gorenstein algebras. The method utilizes certain polynomials associated to such algebras, called nil-polynomials, and we compare them with two other classes of polynomials that have also been used to produce invariants.Comment: 13 page

Responses to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, Australia

Perception of risk affects compliance with public health control measures

Gauged vortices in a background

We discuss the statistical mechanics of a gas of gauged vortices in the canonical formalism. At critical self-coupling, and for low temperatures, it has been argued that the configuration space for vortex dynamics in each topological class of the abelian Higgs model approximately truncates to a finite-dimensional moduli space with a Kaehler structure. For the case where the vortices live on a 2-sphere, we explain how localisation formulas on the moduli spaces can be used to compute explicitly the partition function of the vortex gas interacting with a background potential. The coefficients of this analytic function provide geometrical data about the Kaehler structures, the simplest of which being their symplectic volume (computed previously by Manton using an alternative argument). We use the partition function to deduce simple results on the thermodynamics of the vortex system; in particular, the average height on the sphere is computed and provides an interesting effective picture of the ground state.Comment: Final version: 22 pages, LaTeX, 1 eps figur

Ethnic differences in guideline-indicated statin initiation for people with type 2 diabetes in UK primary care, 2006-2019: A cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes is 2-3 times more prevalent in people of South Asian and African/African Caribbean ethnicity than people of European ethnicity living in the UK. The former 2 groups also experience excess atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) complications of diabetes. We aimed to study ethnic differences in statin initiation, a cornerstone of ASCVD primary prevention, for people with type 2 diabetes. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Observational cohort study of UK primary care records, from 1 January 2006 to 30 June 2019. Data were studied from 27,511 (88%) people of European ethnicity, 2,386 (8%) people of South Asian ethnicity, and 1,142 (4%) people of African/African Caribbean ethnicity with incident type 2 diabetes, no previous ASCVD, and statin use indicated by guidelines. Statin initiation rates were contrasted by ethnicity, and the number of ASCVD events that could be prevented by equalising prescribing rates across ethnic groups was estimated. Median time to statin initiation was 79, 109, and 84 days for people of European, South Asian, and African/African Caribbean ethnicity, respectively. People of African/African Caribbean ethnicity were a third less likely to receive guideline-indicated statins than European people (n/N [%]: 605/1,142 [53%] and 18,803/27,511 [68%], respectively; age- and gender-adjusted HR 0.67 [95% CI 0.60 to 0.76], p < 0.001). The HR attenuated marginally in a model adjusting for total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (0.77 [95% CI 0.69 to 0.85], p < 0.001), with no further diminution when deprivation, ASCVD risk factors, comorbidity, polypharmacy, and healthcare usage were accounted for (fully adjusted HR 0.76 [95% CI 0.68, 0.85], p < 0.001). People of South Asian ethnicity were 10% less likely to receive a statin than European people (1,489/2,386 [62%] and 18,803/27,511 [68%], respectively; fully adjusted HR 0.91 [95% CI 0.85 to 0.98], p = 0.008, adjusting for all covariates). We estimated that up to 12,600 ASCVD events could be prevented over the lifetimes of people currently affected by type 2 diabetes in the UK by equalising statin prescribing across ethnic groups. Limitations included incompleteness of recording of routinely collected data. CONCLUSIONS: In this study we observed that people of African/African Caribbean ethnicity with type 2 diabetes were substantially less likely, and people of South Asian ethnicity marginally less likely, to receive guideline-indicated statins than people of European ethnicity, even after accounting for sociodemographics, healthcare usage, ASCVD risk factors, and comorbidity. Underuse of statins in people of African/African Caribbean or South Asian ethnicity with type 2 diabetes is a missed opportunity to prevent cardiovascular events