Methylome Analysis and Epigenetic Changes Associated with Menarcheal Age

CAD received funding from EU-Europe aid grant CRIS 2009/223–507.The EPIC cohort is supported by the Europe Against Cancer Program of the European Commission (SANCO). The individual centres also received funding from: Denmark (Danish Cancer Society); France (Ligue centre le Cancer, Institut Gustave Roussy, Mutuelle Ge´ne´rale de l’Education Nationale, and Institut National de la Sante´ et de la Recherche Me´dicale (INSERM)); Greece (Hellenic Ministry of Health, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Hellenic Health Foundation); Germany (German Cancer Aid, German Cancer Research Center, and Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant 01-EA-9401)); Italy (Italian Association for Research on Cancer and the National Research Council); The Netherlands (Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS), Netherlands Cancer Registry (NKR), LK Research Funds, Dutch Prevention Funds, and Dutch ZON (Zorg Onderzoek Nederland), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)); Spain (Health Research Fund (FIS) of the Spanish Ministry of Health (Exp 96/0032) and the participating regional governments and institutions); Sweden (Swedish Cancer Society, Swedish Scientific Council, and Regional Government of Skane); and the United Kingdom (Cancer Research UK and Medical Research Council UK and Breast Cancer Campaign). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

COVID-19 management in nursing homes by outbreak teams (MINUTES)-study description and data characteristics:A qualitative study

OBJECTIVES: Nursing homes are hit relatively hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dutch long-term care (LTC) organisations installed outbreak teams (OTs) to coordinate COVID-19 infection prevention and control. LTC organisations and relevant national policy organisations expressed the need to share experiences from these OTs that can be applied directly in COVID-19 policy. The aim of the ‘COVID-19 management in nursing homes by outbreak teams’ (MINUTES) study is to describe the challenges, responses and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dutch nursing homes. In this first article, we describe the MINUTES Study and present data characteristics. DESIGN: This large-scale multicentre study has a qualitative design using manifest content analysis. The participating organisations shared their OT minutes and other meeting documents on a weekly basis. Data from week 16 (April) to week 53 (December) 2020 included the first two waves of COVID-19. SETTING: National study with 41 large Dutch LTC organisations. PARTICIPANTS: The LTC organisations represented 563 nursing home locations and almost 43 000 residents. RESULTS: At least 36 of the 41 organisations had one or more SARS-CoV-2 infections among their residents. Most OTs were composed of management, medical staff, support services staff, policy advisors and communication specialists. Topics that emerged from the documents were: crisis management, isolation of residents, personal protective equipment and hygiene, staff, residents’ well-being, visitor policies, testing and vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: OT meeting minutes are a valuable data source to monitor the impact of and responses to COVID-19 in nursing homes. Depending on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection and analysis will continue until November 2021. The results are used directly in national and organisational COVID-19 policy

Neurobehavioral effects of transportation noise in primary schoolchildren: a cross-sectional study.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.BACKGROUND: Due to shortcomings in the design, no source-specific exposure-effect relations are as yet available describing the effects of noise on children's cognitive performance. This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure on the cognitive performance of primary schoolchildren in both the home and the school setting. METHODS: Participants were 553 children (age 9-11 years) attending 24 primary schools around Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. Cognitive performance was measured by the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES), and a set of paper-and-pencil tests. Multilevel regression analyses were applied to estimate the association between noise exposure and cognitive performance, accounting for demographic and school related confounders. RESULTS: Effects of school noise exposure were observed in the more difficult parts of the Switching Attention Test (SAT): children attending schools with higher road or aircraft noise levels made significantly more errors. The correlational pattern and factor structure of the data indicate that the coherence between the neurobehavioral tests and paper-and-pencil tests is high. CONCLUSIONS: Based on this study and previous scientific literature it can be concluded that performance on simple tasks is less susceptible to the effects of noise than performance on more complex tasks.Funding was provided by the European Community (QLRT-2000-00197), the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK, the Dutch Ministry of Spatial Planning, Housing and the Environment, the Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports, and the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management

Sports-related injuries in primary health care

Introduction. Sports activities play an important role in today’s society. However, as more people become involved in these activities, the number of sports-related injuries also increases. In the Netherlands, 3.5 million sports injuries occur annually. Twenty per cent of these injuries are first seen by a GP. Little is known about the epidemiology of these injuries in general practice. This study has been conducted to determine the incidence and prevalence of sports-related injuries in general practice and to provide information about the nature and treatment of these injuries

Circulating inflammatory biomarkers, adipokines and breast cancer risk—a case-control study nested within the EPIC cohort

This work was funded by the French National Cancer Institute (grant number 2016-128) and the World Cancer Research Fund (grant number 2017/1614). Manon Cairat was supported by a PhD fellowship from la Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer. The coordination of EPIC is financially supported by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and also by the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London which has additional infrastructure support provided by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The national cohorts are supported by: Danish Cancer Society (Denmark); Ligue Contre le Cancer, Institut Gustave Roussy, Mutuelle Generale de l'Education Nationale, Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) (France); German Cancer Aid, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), German Institute of Human Nutrition PotsdamRehbruecke (DIfE), Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (Germany); Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro-AIRC-Italy, Compagnia di SanPaolo and National Research Council (Italy); Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS), Netherlands Cancer Registry (NKR), LK Research Funds, Dutch Prevention Funds, Dutch ZON (Zorg Onderzoek Nederland), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), Statistics Netherlands (The Netherlands); Health Research Fund (FIS) -Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Regional Governments of Andalucia, Asturias, Basque Country, Murcia and Navarra, and the Catalan Institute of Oncology -ICO (Spain); Swedish Cancer Society, Swedish Research Council and County Councils of Skane and Vasterbotten (Sweden); Cancer Research UK (14136 to EPIC-Norfolk; C8221/A29017 to EPIC-Oxford), Medical Research Council (1000143 to EPICNorfolk; MR/M012190/1 to EPIC-Oxford). (United Kingdom). The funders were not involved in designing the study; collecting, analyzing or interpreting the data; or in writing or submitting the manuscript for publication.Background: Inflammation has been hypothesized to play a role in the development and progression of breast cancer and might differently impact breast cancer risk among pre and postmenopausal women. We performed a nested case-control study to examine whether pre-diagnostic circulating concentrations of adiponectin, leptin, c-reactive protein (CRP), tumour necrosis factor-α, interferon-γ and 6 interleukins were associated with breast cancer risk, overall and by menopausal status. Methods: Pre-diagnostic levels of inflammatory biomarkers were measured in plasma from 1558 case-control pairs from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) of breast cancer at blood collection, per one standard deviation increase in biomarker concentration. Results: Cases were diagnosed at a mean age of 61.4 years on average 8.6 years after blood collection. No statistically significant association was observed between inflammatory markers and breast cancer risk overall. In premenopausal women, borderline significant inverse associations were observed for leptin, leptin-to-adiponectin ratio and CRP [OR= 0.89 (0.77–1.03), OR= 0.88 (0.76–1.01) and OR= 0.87 (0.75–1.01), respectively] while positive associations were observed among postmenopausal women [OR= 1.16 (1.05–1.29), OR= 1.11 (1.01–1.23), OR= 1.10 (0.99–1.22), respectively]. Adjustment for BMI strengthened the estimates in premenopausal women [leptin: OR = 0.83 (0.68– 1.00), leptin-to-adiponectin ratio: OR = 0.80 (0.66–0.97), CRP: OR = 0.85 (0.72–1.00)] but attenuated the estimates in postmenopausal women [leptin: OR = 1.09 (0.96–1.24), leptin-to-adiponectin ratio: OR = 1.02 (0.89–1.16), CRP: OR = 1.04 (0.92–1.16)]. Conclusions: Associations between CRP, leptin and leptin-to-adiponectin ratio with breast cancer risk may represent the dual effect of obesity by menopausal status although this deserves further investigation.Institut National du Cancer (INCA) France 2016-128World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF) 2017/1614Ligue nationale contre le cancerWorld Health OrganizationNIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)Danish Cancer SocietyLigue nationale contre le cancerInstitut Gustave RoussyMutuelle Generale de l'Education NationaleInstitut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (Inserm)Deutsche KrebshilfeHelmholtz AssociationFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF)Fondazione AIRC per la ricerca sul cancroConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS), Netherlands Cancer Registry (NKR), LK Research FundsDutch Prevention FundsNetherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), Statistics NetherlandsHealth Research Fund (FIS) -Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)Catalan Institute of Oncology -ICO (Spain)Swedish Cancer SocietySwedish Research CouncilEuropean CommissionCounty Councils of SkaneVasterbotten (Sweden)Cancer Research UK 14136 C8221/A29017UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)Medical Research Council UK (MRC)European Commission 1000143 MR/M012190/

Association Between Genetic Variants on Chromosome 15q25 Locus and Objective Measures of Tobacco Exposure

Background: Two single-nucleotide polymorphisms, rs1051730 and rs16969968, located within the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene cluster on chromosome 15q25 locus, are associated with heaviness of smoking, risk for lung cancer, and other smoking-related health outcomes. Previous studies have typically relied on self-reported smoking behavior, which may not fully capture interindividual variation in tobacco exposure. / Methods: We investigated the association of rs1051730 and rs16969968 genotype (referred to as rs1051730–rs16969968, because these are in perfect linkage disequilibrium and interchangeable) with both self-reported daily cigarette consumption and biochemically measured plasma or serum cotinine levels among cigarette smokers. Summary estimates and descriptive statistical data for 12 364 subjects were obtained from six independent studies, and 2932 smokers were included in the analyses. Linear regression was used to calculate the per-allele association of rs1051730–rs16969968 genotype with cigarette consumption and cotinine levels in current smokers for each study. Meta-analysis of per-allele associations was conducted using a random effects method. The likely resulting association between genotype and lung cancer risk was assessed using published data on the association between cotinine levels and lung cancer risk. All statistical tests were two-sided. / Results: Pooled per-allele associations showed that current smokers with one or two copies of the rs1051730–rs16969968 risk allele had increased self-reported cigarette consumption (mean increase in unadjusted number of cigarettes per day per allele = 1.0 cigarette, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.57 to 1.43 cigarettes, P = 5.22 × 10−6) and cotinine levels (mean increase in unadjusted cotinine levels per allele = 138.72 nmol/L, 95% CI = 97.91 to 179.53 nmol/L, P = 2.71 × 10−11). The increase in cotinine levels indicated an increased risk of lung cancer with each additional copy of the rs1051730–rs16969968 risk allele (per-allele odds ratio = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.21 to 1.42). / Conclusions: Our data show a stronger association of rs1051730–rs16969968 genotype with objective measures of tobacco exposure compared with self-reported cigarette consumption. The association of these variants with lung cancer risk is likely to be mediated largely, if not wholly, via tobacco exposure

Genetic Variation in FADS Genes and Plasma Cholesterol Levels in 2-Year-Old Infants

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes involved in fatty acid metabolism (FADS1 FADS2 gene cluster) are associated with plasma lipid levels. We aimed to investigate whether these associations are already present early in life and compare the relative contribution of FADS SNPs vs traditional (non-genetic) factors as determinants of plasma lipid levels. Information on infants' plasma total cholesterol levels, genotypes of five FADS SNPs (rs174545, rs174546, rs174556, rs174561, and rs3834458), anthropometric data, maternal characteristics, and breastfeeding history was available for 521 2-year-old children from the KOALA Birth Cohort Study. For 295 of these 521 children, plasma HDLc and non-HDLc levels were also known. Multivariable linear regression analysis was used to study the associations of genetic and non-genetic determinants with cholesterol levels. All FADS SNPs were significantly associated with total cholesterol levels. Heterozygous and homozygous for the minor allele children had about 4% and 8% lower total cholesterol levels than major allele homozygotes. In addition, homozygous for the minor allele children had about 7% lower HDLc levels. This difference reached significance for the SNPs rs174546 and rs3834458. The associations went in the same direction for non-HDLc, but statistical significance was not reached. The percentage of total variance of total cholesterol levels explained by FADS SNPs was relatively low (lower than 3%) but of the same order as that explained by gender and the non-genetic determinants together. FADS SNPs are associated with plasma total cholesterol and HDLc levels in preschool children. This brings a new piece of evidence to explain how blood lipid levels may track from childhood to adulthood. Moreover, the finding that these SNPs explain a similar amount of variance in total cholesterol levels as the non-genetic determinants studied reveals the potential importance of investigating the effects of genetic variations in early life

Educational inequalities in cancer survival: A role for comorbidities and health behaviours?

Aim: To describe educational inequalities in cancer survival and to what extent these can be explained by comorbidity and health behaviours (smoking, physical activity and alcohol consumption). Methods: The GLOBE study sent postal questionnaires to individuals in The Netherlands in 1991 resulting in 18 973 respondents (response 70%). Questions were asked on education, health and health-related behaviours. Participants were linked for cancer diagnosis (1991-2008), comorbidity and survival (up to 2010) with the population-based Eindhoven Cancer Registry; 1127 tumours were included in the analyses. Results: 5-year crude survival was best in highly educated patients as compared with low educated patients for all cancers combined: 49% versus 32% in male subjects (log rank: p<0.0001), 65% versus 49% in female subjects (p=0.0001). Compared with highly educated, low educated prostate cancer patients had an increased risk of death (HR 2.9 (95% CI 1.7 to 5.1), adjusted for age, stage and year). No or inconsistent associations between educational level and risk of death were seen in multivariable analyses for breast, colon and non-small cell lung cancer. Although survival in prostate cancer patients was affected by comorbidities (HR2_vs_0_comorbidities: 2.6 (1.5 to 4.4)), physical activity (HRno/little_vs__moderate_physical__activity: 2.0 (1.2 to 3.4)) and smoking (HRcurrent_vs_never_smokers: 2.6 (1.0-6.8)), these did not contribute to educat

Monitoramento de resíduos de carbofuran no plantio de banana 'prata anã' utilizando diferentes tratamentos químicos.

bitstream/CTAA-2009-09/8946/1/ct79-2005.pd