Germline mutations in PMS2 and MLH1 in individuals with solitary loss of PMS2 expression in colorectal carcinomas from the Colon Cancer Family Registry Cohort

Immunohistochemistry for DNA mismatch repair proteins is used to screen for Lynch syndrome in individuals with colorectal carcinoma (CRC). Although solitary loss of PMS2 expression is indicative of carrying a germline mutation in PMS2, previous studies reported MLH1 mutation in some cases. We determined the prevalence of MLH1 germline mutations in a large cohort of individuals with a CRC demonstrating solitary loss of PMS2 expression

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

We Came for the Lake—Late Pleistocene Landscape Reconstruction in Lieth Moor, District Pinneberg, Germany

The Lieth Moor area, located in the district of Pinneberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, is a hotspot of Late Palaeolithic settlement activity. The exceptional abundance of archaeological sites is commonly attributed to the presence of a large palaeolake. However, in the Weichselian Late glacial, there were numerous large lakes in Schleswig-Holstein. Thus, a well-founded explanation for the find concentration in Lieth Moor is still lacking, and forming a research desideratum until today. To improve our understanding of this Late Pleistocene landscape and its appeal to hunter–gatherer groups of that time, we conducted a large-scale archaeogeophysical study focusing on a possible ford of the potential palaeolake. We employed Ground-Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic Induction measurements, supplemented by existing legacy drill-probing data, to identify and map limnic gyttja (organic lake mud) sediments and their spatial distribution within the area. The findings of our study indicate that during the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, the Lieth Moor area comprised a cluster of small ponds rather than a continuous lake. These ponds likely interconnected during periods of increased water levels. The presence of dry islands within the region corresponds with archaeological evidence, suggesting that Late Palaeolithic communities visited some of these islands. The absence of the previously postulated palaeolake places the known findings within a completely new palaeoenvironmental context: instead of the previously suspected ford, we assume that the proximity to the Elbe Palaeovalley played a decisive role in the repeated habitation of Lieth Moor. This area, rich in fresh water and fish, along with the dune chain situated to the west, serving as both a vantage point and windbreak, presented an ideal location for awaiting animals migrating along the river Elbe and/or as a resting place within the settlement system of mobile hunter–fisher–gatherer groups

Tumor testing to identify lynch syndrome in two Australian colorectal cancer cohorts

Tumor testing of colorectal cancers (CRC) for mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency is an effective approach to identify carriers of germline MMR gene mutation (Lynch syndrome). The aim of this study was to identify MMR gene mutation carriers in two cohorts of population-based CRC utilizing a combination of tumor and germline testing approaches

Caboonbah: the archaeology of a middle class Queensland pastoral family

Pastoralism was the mainstay of the developing economy of Queensland. The men and women who owned the pastoral properties were mainly from upper and middle class English and Scottish families. One such family, the Somersets, occupied Caboonbah, a pastoral property in the Brisbane Valley of Queensland in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Excavation of the rubbish gully associated with the homestead provided material evidence of how this family adhered to the tenets of middle class family life while living in an isolated rural area and contending with the fluctuating fortunes of life on the land

The Dalton quantum chemistry program system

Dalton is a powerful general-purpose program system for the study of molecular electronic structure at the Hartree–Fock, Kohn–Sham, multiconfigurational self-consistent-field, Møller–Plesset, configuration-interaction, and coupled-cluster levels of theory. Apart from the total energy, a wide variety of molecular properties may be calculated using these electronic-structure models. Molecular gradients and Hessians are available for geometry optimizations, molecular dynamics, and vibrational studies, whereas magnetic resonance and optical activity can be studied in a gauge-origin-invariant manner. Frequency-dependent molecular properties can be calculated using linear, quadratic, and cubic response theory. A large number of singlet and triplet perturbation operators are available for the study of one-, two-, and three-photon processes. Environmental effects may be included using various dielectric-medium and quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics models. Large molecules may be studied using linear-scaling and massively parallel algorithms. Dalton is distributed at no cost from http://www.daltonprogram.org for a number of UNIX platforms