Life stage and sex specificity in relationships between the built and socioeconomic environments and physical activity

In the largely cross-sectional literature, built environment characteristics such as walkability and recreation centers are variably related to physical activity. Subgroup-specific effects could help explain inconsistent findings, yet few studies have compared built environment associations by key characteristics such as sex or life stage

California 2025: Planning for a Better Future

Provides overviews of issues, underlying factors, projections, and policy outlook for the state's budget, climate change effects, economy, education, population, transportation, water management, and workforce

How do individual-level sociodemographics and neighbourhood-level characteristics influence residential location behaviour in the context of the food and built environment? Findings from 25 years of follow-up in the CARDIA Study

Little is known about how diet-related and activity-related amenities relate to residential location behaviour. Understanding these relationships is essential for addressing residential self-selection bias

Overweight dynamics in Chinese children and adults: Chinese obesity dynamics

China has experienced a transition from a history of undernutrition to a rapid increase in obesity. The China Health and Nutrition Survey, an ongoing longitudinal, household-based survey of urban and rural residents of nine provinces, documents these changes using measured height and weight across 53,298 observations from 18,059 participants collected from 1991 to 2011. Adult overweight (body mass index [BMI] ≥ 25 kilograms per square meter [kg/m2]) prevalence nearly tripled from 1991 (11.7%) to 2009 (29.2%), with significant cohort and age-related effects (stronger in males). Among youth, quantile regression reveals changes across the BMI distribution. By 2009 approximately 12% of children and adolescents were overweight, and 3% of 7–11 years old and 1% of 12–17 years old were obese (International Obesity Taskforce [IOTF] BMI 25 and 30 kg/m2 equivalents, respectively). In 1991–2000 urbanicity was strongly and positively associated with BMI, but in 2000–2011 trends were more similar across rural and urban areas. Among women, the burden has shifted to lower-educated women (the reverse is true for males, as overweight was higher in higher-educated men). Our findings highlight the importance of preventive measures early in the life cycle to reduce weight gain

Timing and Duration of Obesity in Relation to Diabetes: Findings from an ethnically diverse, nationally representative sample

OBJECTIVE The influence on diabetes of the timing and duration of obesity across the high-risk period of adolescence to young adulthood has not been investigated in a population-based, ethnically diverse sample

Young star clusters in M31

In our study of M31's globular cluster system with MMT/Hectospec, we have obtained high-quality spectra of 85 clusters with ages less than 1 Gyr. With the exception of Hubble V, the young cluster in NGC 205, we find that these young clusters have kinematics and spatial distribution consistent with membership in M31's young disk. Preliminary estimates of the cluster masses and structural parameters, using spectroscopically derived ages and HST imaging, confirms earlier suggestions that M31 has clusters similar to the LMC's young populous clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, contributed talk at "Galaxies in the Local Volume" conference in Sydney, July 200

Multilevel examination of diabetes in modernising China: what elements of urbanisation are most associated with diabetes?

Aims/hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between urbanisation-related factors and diabetes prevalence in China. Methods: Anthropometry, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and community-level data were collected for 7,741 adults (18–90 years) across 217 communities and nine provinces in the 2009 China Health and Nutrition Survey to examine diabetes (FBG ≥7.0 mmol/l or doctor diagnosis). Sex-stratified multilevel models, clustered at the community and province levels and controlling for individual-level age and household income were used to examine the association between diabetes and: (1) a multicomponent urbanisation measure reflecting overall modernisation and (2) 12 separate components of urbanisation (e.g., population density, employment, markets, infrastructure and social factors). Results: Prevalent diabetes was higher in more-urbanised (men 12%; women 9%) vs less-urbanised (men 6%; women 5%) areas. In sex-stratified multilevel models adjusting for residential community and province, age and household income, there was a twofold higher diabetes prevalence in urban vs rural areas (men OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.47, 2.78; women, OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.35, 2.79). All urbanisation components were positively associated with diabetes, with variation across components (e.g. men, economic and income diversity, OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.20, 1.66; women, transportation infrastructure, OR 1.18, 95% CI 1.06, 1.32). Community-level variation in diabetes was comparatively greater for women (intraclass correlation [ICC] 0.03–0.05) vs men (ICC ≤0.01); province-level variation was greater for men (men 0.03–0.04; women 0.02). Conclusions/interpretation: Diabetes prevention and treatment efforts are needed particularly in urbanised areas of China. Community economic factors, modern markets, communications and transportation infrastructure might present opportunities for such efforts. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00125-012-2697-8) contains peer-reviewed but unedited supplementary material, which is available to authorised users

Long-term, treatment-free survival in select patients with distant metastatic papillary thyroid cancer

Well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma (WDTC) generally has a favorable prognosis. However, patients with distant metastatic disease experience progression of disease with a higher mortality. A subset of patients not previously described may challenge the conventional dogma regarding the progressive nature of all metastatic WDTC. Through analysis of our database, we identified patients with distant metastatic WDTC and persistent, minimally progressive disease. In all patients, persistent metastatic disease was confirmed via tissue biopsy, abnormal PET scan, and/or biochemical elevations in thyroglobulin or antibody levels. Progression of disease was monitored clinically and with repeat imaging. We describe five patients with WDTC and pulmonary metastases, aged 8–43 years at diagnosis. All patients underwent initial surgery and radioactive iodine (RAI) ablation, with some receiving multiple treatments. Persistent pulmonary metastatic disease was confirmed over decades (mean 22 years, range 8–42 years) with minimal progression despite no further treatment beyond thyroid hormone suppression. Persistent disease was biopsy-proven in all patients at a mean of 9.6 years from last RAI treatment. All patients had elevated thyroglobulin or anti-thyroglobulin antibody levels, while three demonstrated metabolically active disease with positive FDG uptake on PET scan, and one patient with persistent radioactive iodine avid pulmonary metastasis 36 years after her last RAI treatment. This case series demonstrates that some patients with distant metastases, even if metabolically active and radioactive iodine resistant, remain stable for decades without further treatment. Clinical awareness of such patients and continual reassessment of disease risk following initial therapy are crucial as aggressive treatment may not be necessary

Cross-sectional association between diet quality and cardiometabolic risk by education level in Mexican adults

Objective: Understanding the association between diet quality and cardiometabolic risk by education level is important for preventing increased cardiometabolic risk in the Mexican population, especially considering pre-existing disparities in diet quality. The present study examined the cross-sectional association of overall diet quality with cardiometabolic risk, overall and by education level, among Mexican men and women.Design: Cardiometabolic risk was defined by using biomarkers and diet quality by the Mexican Diet Quality Index. We computed sex-specific multivariable logistic regression models.Setting: Mexico.Participants: Mexican men (n 634) and women (n 875) participating in the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey 2012.Results: We did not find associations of diet quality with cardiometabolic risk factors in the total sample or in men by education level. However, we observed that for each 10-unit increase in the dietary quality score, the odds of diabetes risk in women with no reading/writing skills was 0·47 (95 % CI 0·26, 0·85) relative to the odds in women with ≥10 years of school (referent). Similarly, for each 10-unit increase of the dietary quality score, the odds of having three v. no lipid biomarker level beyond the risk threshold in lower-educated women was 0·27 (95 % CI 0·12, 0·63) relative to the odds in higher-educated women.Conclusions: Diet quality has a stronger protective association with some cardiometabolic disease risk factors for lower- than higher-educated Mexican women, but no association with cardiometabolic disease risk factors among men. Future research will be needed to understand what diet factors could be influencing the cardiometabolic disease risk disparities in this population

Changes in waist circumference relative to body mass index in Chinese adults, 1993–2009

Although BMI and waist circumference (WC) are correlated, the relationship between WC and BMI may have changed over time