Associations of Leisure-Time Physical Activity and Television Viewing With Life Expectancy Free of Nonfatal Cardiovascular Disease: The ARIC Study

Background High levels of physical activity have been associated with longer life expectancy free of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but specific types of CVD and sedentary behavior have not been examined. We examined associations of leisure-time moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (LTPA) and television viewing with life expectancy free of 3 types of CVD. Methods and Results We included 13 534 participants from the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) cohort. We used multistate survival models to estimate associations of LTPA in the past year (no LTPA, less than the median, equal to or greater than the median) and television viewing (often or very often, sometimes, seldom or rarely) with life expectancy at age 50 free of nonfatal coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and heart failure (HF). Over 27 years of follow-up, 4519 participants developed one of the 3 nonfatal CVDs and 5475 deaths occurred. Compared with participants who engaged in no LTPA, participants who engaged in LTPA equal to or greater than the median had longer life expectancy free of nonfatal CHD (men: 1.5 years [95% CI, 1.0-2.0]; women: 1.6 years [95% CI, 1.1-2.2]), stroke (men: 1.8 years [95% CI, 1.2-2.3]; women: 1.8 years [95% CI, 1.3-2.3]), and HF (men: 1.6 years [95% CI, 1.1-2.1]; women: 1.7 years [95% CI, 1.2-2.2]). Compared with viewing more television, watching less television was associated with longer life expectancy free of CHD, stroke, and HF (≈0.8 year). Conclusions Higher levels of LTPA and less television viewing were associated with longer life expectancy free of CHD, stroke, and HF. Engaging in LTPA and watching less television may increase the number of years lived free of CHD, stroke, and HF

Associations of leisure-time physical activity and television viewing with life expectancy cancer-free at age 50: The ARIC study

Background: Physical activity has been associated with longer chronic disease-free life expectancy, but specific cancer types have not been investigated. We examined whether leisure-time moderate- to-vigorous physical activity (LTPA) and television (TV) viewing were associated with life expectancy cancer-free. Methods: We included 14,508 participants without a cancer history from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. We used multistate survival models to separately examine associations of LTPA (no LTPA, <median, ≥median) and TV viewing (seldom/never, sometimes, often/very often) with life expectancy cancer-free at age 50 from invasive colorectal, lung, prostate, and postmenopausal breast cancer. Models were adjusted for age, gender, race, ARIC center, education, smoking, and alcohol intake. Results: Compared with no LTPA, participants who engaged in LTPA ≥median had a greater life expectancy cancer-free from colorectal [men-2.2 years (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.7-2.7), women-2.3 years (95% CI, 1.7-2.8)], lung [men-2.1 years (95% CI, 1.5-2.6), women-2.1 years (95% CI, 1.6-2.7)], prostate [1.5 years (95% CI, 0.8-2.2)], and postmenopausal breast cancer [2.4 years (95% CI, 1.4-3.3)]. Compared with watching TV often/very often, participants who seldom/never watched TV had a greater colorectal, lung, and postmenopausal breast cancer-free life expectancy of ∼1 year. Conclusions: Participating in LTPA was associated with longer life expectancy cancer-free from colorectal, lung, prostate, and postmenopausal breast cancer. Viewing less TV was associated with more years lived cancer-free from colorectal, lung, and postmenopausal breast cancer. Impact: Increasing physical activity and reducing TV viewing may extend the number of years lived cancer-free

Controlling for frailty in pharmacoepidemiologic studies of older adults

Background: Frailty is a geriatric syndrome characterized by weakness and weight loss and is associated with adverse health outcomes. It is often an unmeasured confounder in pharmacoepidemiologic and comparative effectiveness studies using administrative claims data. Methods: Among the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study Visit 5 participants (2011-2013; n = 3,146), we conducted a validation study to compare a Medicare claims-based algorithm of dependency in activities of daily living (or dependency) developed as a proxy for frailty with a reference standard measure of phenotypic frailty. We applied the algorithm to the ARIC participants' claims data to generate a predicted probability of dependency. Using the claims-based algorithm, we estimated the C-statistic for predicting phenotypic frailty. We further categorized participants by their predicted probability of dependency (<5%, 5% to <20%, and ≥20%) and estimated associations with difficulties in physical abilities, falls, and mortality. Results: The claims-based algorithm showed good discrimination of phenotypic frailty (C-statistic = 0.71; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.67, 0.74). Participants classified with a high predicted probability of dependency (≥20%) had higher prevalence of falls and difficulty in physical ability, and a greater risk of 1-year all-cause mortality (hazard ratio = 5.7 [95% CI = 2.5, 13]) than participants classified with a low predicted probability (<5%). Sensitivity and specificity varied across predicted probability of dependency thresholds. Conclusions: The Medicare claims-based algorithm showed good discrimination of phenotypic frailty and high predictive ability with adverse health outcomes. This algorithm can be used in future Medicare claims analyses to reduce confounding by frailty and improve study validity

Socioeconomic status and access to care and the incidence of a heart failure diagnosis in the inpatient and outpatient settings

Purpose: Despite well-documented associations of socioeconomic status with incident heart failure (HF) hospitalization, little information exists on the relationship of socioeconomic status with HF diagnosed in the outpatient (OP) setting. Methods: We used Poisson models to examine the association of area-level indicators of educational attainment, poverty, living situation, and density of primary care physicians with incident HF diagnosed in the inpatient (IP) and OP settings among a cohort of Medicare beneficiaries (n = 109,756; 2001–2013). Results: The age-standardized rate of HF incidence was 35.8 (95% confidence interval [CI], 35.1–36.5) and 13.9 (95% CI, 13.5–14.4) cases per 1000 person-years in IP and OP settings, respectively. The incidence rate differences (IRDs) per 1000 person-years in both settings suggested greater incidence of HF in high- compared to low-poverty areas (IP IRD = 4.47 [95% CI, 3.29–5.65], OP IRD = 1.41 [95% CI, 0.61–2.22]) and in low- compared to high-education areas (IP IRD = 3.73 [95% CI, 2.63–4.82], OP IRD = 1.72 [95% CI, 0.97–2.47]). Conclusions: Our results highlight the role of area-level social determinants of health in the incidence of HF in both the IP and OP settings. These findings may have implications for HF prevention policies

Uso da Espectroscopia Raman e FT-IR na caracterização do biocarvão em Latossolo Amarelo da Amazônia Central

The Amazonian Latosols are acidic soils shows low activity in clay minerals. However, it is also found anthropogenic soils known as Amazonian Dark Earth (EAD) that provides a potential to develop a sustainable system in agriculture. The majority of TPI soils show fragments of black carbon stemming from an anthropic activity. The presence of these fragments endows the improvements in the physic and chemical characteristics of the soil. In order to reproduce some characteristics of these anthropogenic soils, it is proposed to apply biochar (BC) in a dystrophic Yellow Oxisol in increasing doses from 0; 40; 80 and 120 t.ha-1. The use of Spectroscopy FT-IR and Raman tools and technics can elucidate on the nature of the pyrolised biomass and likewise interfere on the fertility of the soil. Furthermore, it could clarify how the BC contributes to the increase of cation exchange capacity (CEC), the elucidation of its chemical characteristics and how it can act in the development of a sustainable agriculture model for the humid tropics. It was possible to observe that he FT-IR spectra were similar between the treatments and that the BC exhibits similar crystallinity to the carbons of Amazonian Dark Earth

A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

Novel Bound States Treatment of the Two Dimensional Schrodinger Equation with Pseudocentral Plus Multiparameter Noncentral Potential

By converting the rectangular basis potential V(x,y) into the form as V(r)+V(r, phi) described by the pseudo central plus noncentral potential, particular solutions of the two dimensional Schrodinger equation in plane-polar coordinates have been carried out through the analytic approaching technique of the Nikiforov and Uvarov (NUT). Both the exact bound state energy spectra and the corresponding bound state wavefunctions of the complete system are determined explicitly and in closed forms. Our presented results are identical to those of the previous works and they may also be useful for investigation and analysis of structural characteristics in a variety of quantum systemsComment: Published, 16 page