276 research outputs found
Early exposure to dogs and farm animals and the risk of childhood asthma
IMPORTANCE: The association between early exposure to animals and childhood
asthma is not clear, and previous studies have yielded contradictory results.
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether exposure to dogs and farm animals confers a risk
of asthma.
DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: In a nationwide cohort study, the
association between early exposure to dogs and farm animals and the risk of
asthma was evaluated and included all children born in Sweden from January 1,
2001, to December 31, 2010 (N = 1,011,051), using registry data on dog and farm
registration, asthma medication, diagnosis, and confounders for parents and their
children. The association was assessed as the odds ratio (OR) for a current
diagnosis of asthma at age 6 years for school-aged children and as the hazard
ratio (HR) for incident asthma at ages 1 to 5 years for preschool-aged children.
Data were analyzed from January 1, 2007, to September 30, 2012.
EXPOSURES: Living
with a dog or farm animal.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Childhood asthma diagnosis
and medication used.
RESULTS: Of the 1,011,051 children born during the study
period, 376,638 preschool-aged (53,460 [14.2%] exposed to dogs and 1729 [0.5%]
exposed to farm animals) and 276,298 school-aged children (22,629 [8.2%] exposed
to dogs and 958 [0.3%] exposed to farm animals) were included in the analyses. Of
these, 18,799 children (5.0%) in the preschool-aged children's cohort experienced
an asthmatic event before baseline, and 28,511 cases of asthma and 906,071 years
at risk were recorded during follow-up (incidence rate, 3.1 cases per 1000 years
at risk). In the school-aged children's cohort, 11,585 children (4.2%)
experienced an asthmatic event during the seventh year of life. Dog exposure
during the first year of life was associated with a decreased risk of asthma in
school-aged children (OR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.81-0.93) and in preschool-aged children
3 years or older (HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.83-0.99) but not in children younger than 3
years (HR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.00-1.07). Results were comparable when analyzing only
first-born children. Farm animal exposure was associated with a reduced risk of
asthma in both school-aged children and preschool-aged children (OR, 0.48; 95%
CI, 0.31-0.76, and HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.56-0.84), respectively.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this study, the data support the hypothesis that exposure to dogs
and farm animals during the first year of life reduces the risk of asthma in
children at age 6 years. This information might be helpful in decision making for
families and physicians on the appropriateness and timing of early animal
exposure.NonePublishe
Predicting COVID-19 hospitalizations:The importance of healthcare hotlines, test positivity rates and vaccination coverage
In this study, we developed a negative binomial regression model for one-week ahead spatio-temporal predictions of the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Uppsala County, Sweden. Our model utilized weekly aggregated data on testing, vaccination, and calls to the national healthcare hotline. Variable importance analysis revealed that calls to the national healthcare hotline were the most important contributor to prediction performance when predicting COVID-19 hospitalizations. Our results support the importance of early testing, systematic registration of test results, and the value of healthcare hotline data in predicting hospitalizations. The proposed models may be applied to studies modeling hospitalizations of other viral respiratory infections in space and time assuming count data are overdispersed. Our suggested variable importance analysis enables the calculation of the effects on the predictive performance of each covariate. This can inform decisions about which types of data should be prioritized, thereby facilitating the allocation of healthcare resources.</p
Season of birth, childhood asthma and allergy in a nationwide cohort : mediation through lower respiratory infections
Background: Previous studies have suggested an association between season of birth and risk of childhood asthma and allergic disease. The association may be modified by birth year and region, or mediated by respiratory tract infections.
Objective: We aimed to estimate the association between season of birth and risk of childhood asthma/wheeze or allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in a population-based setting, and the mediating effect of lower respiratory infections.
Methods: Two population-based cohorts were identified from the nationwide Swedish Medical Birth, Patient and Prescribed Drug Registers. The association between birth month/season and asthma/wheeze incidence was analysed using Cox proportional regression in the younger cohort born 2005-2010 (n = 582 494) and asthma/allergic rhinoconjunctivitis prevalence during the 7th year of life using log-binomial models in the older cohort born 2001-2004 (n = 367 583). Interactions were formally tested. Mediation analyses to address the effect of lower respiratory infections were performed in the older cohort using the R package "medflex."
Results: Children born during fall and winter had an increased risk of asthma/wheeze after 2 years of age in the younger cohort: hazard ratio 1.24 (95% confidence interval, CI 1.17, 1.33) for winter and risk of prevalent asthma during their 7th year of life in the older cohort; prevalence ratio (PR) 1.12 (95% CI 1.08, 1.16) for winter. These estimates were partly mediated by lower respiratory infections; the indirect effect for winter compared with summer was PR 1.03 (95% CI 1.03, 1.04). The association was similar for allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in the 7th year of life, but not mediated by respiratory infections.Conclusion: We found that the association between season of birth and risk of childhood asthma/wheeze, but not allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, is partly mediated through lower respiratory infections.
Clinical relevance: This has important implications for patient care, such as asthma management programmes to notify timing of seasonality for viral respiratory tract infections.Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, Grant/Award Number: 2015-00289Swedish Research Council, Grant/Award Number: 2018-02640 and 340-2013-5867Swedish HeartLung Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 20150440 and 20180512Stockholm County CouncilKarolinska InstitutetAccepte
Incidence of Diabetes Mellitus in Insured Swedish Cats in Relation to Age, Breed and Sex
Background: Diabetes mellitus ( DM) is a common endocrinopathy in cats. Most affected cats suffer from a type of diabetes similar to type 2 diabetes in humans. An increasing prevalence has been described in cats, as in humans, related to obesity and other lifestyle factors. Objectives: To describe the incidence of DM in insured Swedish cats and the association of DM with demographic risk factors, such as age, breed and sex. Animals: A cohort of 504,688 individual cats accounting for 1,229,699 cat- years at risk ( CYAR) insured by a Swedish insurance company from 2009 to 2013. Methods: We used reimbursed insurance claims for the diagnosis of DM. Overall incidence rates and incidence rates stratified on year, age, breed, and sex were estimated. Results: The overall incidence rate of DM in the cohort was 11.6 cases ( 95% confidence interval [ CI], 11.0- 12.2) per 10,000 CYAR. Male cats had twice as high incidence rate ( 15.4; 95% CI, 14.4- 16.4) as females ( 7.6; 95% CI, 6.9- 8.3). Domestic cats were at higher risk compared to purebred cats. A significant association with breed was seen, with the Burmese, Russian Blue, Norwegian Forest cat, and Abyssinian breeds at a higher risk compared to other cats. No sex predisposition was found among Burmese cats. Several breeds with a lower risk of DM were identified. Conclusions and clinical importance: Our results verify that the Burmese breed is at increased risk of developing DM. We also identified several previously unreported breeds with increased or decreased risk of DM
Antibiotics in fetal and early life and subsequent childhood asthma : nationwide population based study with sibling analysis
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between exposure to antibiotics in
fetal and early life and asthma in childhood, with adjustment for confounding
factors.
DESIGN: Nationwide prospective population based cohort study, including
sibling control design.
SETTING: Swedish population identified from national
demographic and health registers.
PARTICIPANTS: 493,785 children born 2006-10;
180,894 of these were eligible for sibling analyses.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Asthma
defined as having both an asthma diagnosis and dispensed asthma drugs. The
association between antibiotic exposure and asthma was investigated in the whole
cohort with Cox proportional hazard regression. A stratified proportional hazards
model conditional on sibling group was used to adjust for shared factors within
families. Confounding by respiratory infections was assessed by investigating
whether specific groups of antibiotics were associated with asthma.
RESULTS:
Antibiotic exposure in fetal life was associated with an increased risk of asthma
in cohort analyses (hazard ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval 1.25 to 1.32), but
not in sibling analyses (0.99, 0.92 to 1.07). In cohort analyses, antibiotics
used to treat respiratory infections in childhood were associated with a more
pronounced increased risk of asthma (4.12, 3.78 to 4.50) than antibiotics used
for urinary tract and skin infections (1.54, 1.24 to 1.92). In sibling analyses,
the excess risks after exposure to antibiotics for respiratory infections
decreased (2.36, 1.78 to 3.13) and disappeared for antibiotics for urinary tract
and skin (0.85, 0.47 to 1.55).
CONCLUSIONS: Previous positive associations
between exposure to antibiotics in fetal and early life and subsequent childhood
asthma could have been caused by confounding by shared familial factors, in
addition to confounding by respiratory infections.NonePublishe
Normal values for calprotectin in stool samples of infants from the population-based longitudinal born into life study
Faecal calprotectin is a protein used as a diagnostic marker for inflammatory
bowel diseases. We determined upper limits for normal calprotectin values for
neonatal, 6, 12 and 24 months old children using a turbidimetric immunoassay in a
cohort of Swedish children. The advantage of the method is that opposite to
previously used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method, it enables
measuring single samples, and thus, shortens the analysis time significantly.
There were 72 samples (41.7% female) collected neonatally, 63 samples (34.9%
female) at 6 months, 60 samples (40.0% female) at 12 months and 51 samples (43.1%
female) at 24 months. The upper limits for normal values were 233, 615, 136 and
57 microg mg(-1) for infants aged 0, 6, 12 and 24 months, respectively.The Swedish Research Council under Grants 2015-03477, 2010-15062-79050-11, 2015-02434; the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM) framework under Grant 340-2013-5867Accepte
Non-targeted urine metabolomics and associations with prevalent and incident type 2 diabetes
Better risk prediction and new molecular targets are key priorities in type 2 diabetes (T2D) research. Little is known about the role of the urine metabolome in predicting the risk of T2D. We aimed to use non-targeted urine metabolomics to discover biomarkers and improve risk prediction for T2D. Urine samples from two community cohorts of 1,424 adults were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS). In a discovery/replication design, three out of 62 annotated metabolites were associated with prevalent T2D, notably lower urine levels of 3-hydroxyundecanoyl-carnitine. In participants without diabetes at baseline, LASSO regression in the training set selected six metabolites that improved prediction of T2D beyond established risk factors risk over up to 12 years' follow-up in the test sample, from C-statistic 0.866 to 0.892. Our results in one of the largest non-targeted urinary metabolomics study to date demonstrate the role of the urine metabolome in identifying at-risk persons for T2D and suggest urine 3-hydroxyundecanoyl-carnitine as a biomarker candidate.Peer reviewe
The ABCC4 gene is associated with pyometra in golden retriever dogs
Pyometra is one of the most common diseases in female dogs, presenting as purulent inflammation and bacterial infection of the uterus. On average 20% of intact female dogs are affected before 10 years of age, a proportion that varies greatly between breeds (3-66%). The clear breed predisposition suggests that genetic risk factors are involved in disease development. To identify genetic risk factors associated with the disease, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in golden retrievers, a breed with increased risk of developing pyometra (risk ratio: 3.3). We applied a mixed model approach comparing 98 cases, and 96 healthy controls and identified an associated locus on chromosome 22 (p = 1.2 x 10(-6), passing Bonferroni corrected significance). This locus contained five significantly associated SNPs positioned within introns of the ATP-binding cassette transporter 4 (ABCC4) gene. This gene encodes a transmembrane transporter that is important for prostaglandin transport. Next generation sequencing and genotyping of cases and controls subsequently identified four missense SNPs within the ABCC4 gene. One missense SNP at chr22:45,893,198 (p.Met787Val) showed complete linkage disequilibrium with the associated GWAS SNPs suggesting a potential role in disease development. Another locus on chromosome 18 overlapping the TESMIN gene, is also potentially implicated in the development of the disease
Glucose challenge metabolomics implicates medium-chain acylcarnitines in insulin resistance
Insulin resistance (IR) predisposes to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease but its causes are incompletely understood. Metabolic challenges like the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) can reveal pathogenic mechanisms. We aimed to discover associations of IR with metabolite trajectories during OGTT. In 470 non-diabetic men (age 70.6 ± 0.6 years), plasma samples obtained at 0, 30 and 120 minutes during an OGTT were analyzed by untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry metabolomics. IR was assessed with the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp method. We applied age-adjusted linear regression to identify metabolites whose concentration change was related to IR. Nine trajectories, including monounsaturated fatty acids, lysophosphatidylethanolamines and a bile acid, were significantly associated with IR, with the strongest associations observed for medium-chain acylcarnitines C10 and C12, and no associations with L-carnitine or C2-, C8-, C14- or C16-carnitine. Concentrations of C10- and C12-carnitine decreased during OGTT with a blunted decline in participants with worse insulin resistance. Associations persisted after adjustment for obesity, fasting insulin and fasting glucose. In mouse 3T3-L1 adipocytes exposed to different acylcarnitines, we observed blunted insulin-stimulated glucose uptake after treatment with C10- or C12-carnitine. In conclusion, our results identify medium-chain acylcarnitines as possible contributors to IR
Author Correction: Symptoms and syndromes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and severity in pregnant women from two community cohorts
Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86452-3, published online 25 March 2021
The Funding section in the original version of this Article was incomplete
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