Affective Decision-making Predictive of Chinese Adolescent Drinking Behaviors

The goal of the current investigation was to address whether affective decision making would serve as a unique neuropsychological marker to predict drinking behaviors among adolescents. We conducted a longitudinal study of 181 Chinese adolescents in Chengdu city, China. In their 10th grade (ages 15–16), these adolescents were tested for their affective decision-making ability using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and working memory capacity using the Self-Ordered Pointing Test. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess academic performance and drinking behaviors. At 1-year follow-up, questionnaires were completed to assess drinking behaviors, and the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale was used to examine four dimensions of impulsivity: urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking. Results indicated that those adolescents who progressed to binge drinking or exhibited consistent binge drinking not only performed poorly on the IGT but also scored significantly higher in urgency compared to those who never or occasionally drank. Moreover, better IGT scores predicted fewer drinking problems and fewer drinks 1 year later after controlling for demographic variables, the previous drinking behaviors, working memory, and impulsivity. These findings suggest that deficits in affective decision making may be important independent determinants of compulsive drinking and potentially addictive behavior in adolescents. (JINS, 2009, 15, 547–557.

Evaluation of bi-directional causal association between periodontitis and benign prostatic hyperplasia: epidemiological studies and two-sample mendelian randomization analysis

Background: Periodontitis and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are all common chronic diseases with higher incidence in middle-aged and old men. Several studies have indicated a potential association between periodontitis and BPH, although the findings remain inconclusive. However, there is no mendelian randomization (MR) studies to assess this association.Methods: The 40 men who had received health check-ups were included in an epidemiological study. Genetic data of BPH (13118 cases and 72799 controls) and periodontitis (3046 cases and 195395 controls) from FinnGen project was used to perform two-sample MR analysis. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) model was identified as the primary analytical method, with MR Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weighted mode serving as additional approaches.Results: The epidemiological analysis demonstrated a lack of statistically significant differences in the prevalence of clinical BPH between severe periodontitis group and non-severe periodontitis group. Similarly, no statistically significant differences were found in the prevalence of severe periodontitis among individuals with clinical BPH compared to those without. Additionally, Among the five models utilized in MR analysis, including the IVW model, no evidence of a causal link between periodontitis and BPH was observed.Conclusion: The findings from our epidemiological investigation and MR analysis do not provide support for a causal relationship between periodontitis and BPH

Genetic variants in microRNA and microRNA biogenesis pathway genes and breast cancer risk among women of African ancestry

MicroRNAs (miRNA) regulate breast biology by binding to specific RNA sequences, leading to RNA degradation and inhibition of translation of their target genes. While germline genetic variations may disrupt some of these interactions between miRNAs and their targets, studies assessing the relationship between genetic variations in the miRNA network and breast cancer risk are still limited, particularly among women of African ancestry

Genome-wide association studies in women of African ancestry identified 3q26.21 as a novel susceptibility locus for oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer

Multiple breast cancer loci have been identified in previous genome-wide association studies, but they were mainly conducted in populations of European ancestry. Women of African ancestry are more likely to have young-onset and oestrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer for reasons that are unknown and understudied. To identify genetic risk factors for breast cancer in women of African descent, we conducted a meta-analysis of two genome-wide association studies of breast cancer; one study consists of 1,657 cases and 2,029 controls genotyped with Illumina's HumanOmni2.5 BeadChip and the other study included 3,016 cases and 2,745 controls genotyped using Illumina Human1M-Duo BeadChip. The top 18,376 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the meta-analysis were replicated in the third study that consists of 1,984 African Americans cases and 2,939 controls. We found that SNP rs13074711, 26.5 Kb upstream of TNFSF10 at 3q26.21, was significantly associated with risk of oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer (odds ratio [OR]=1.29, 95% CI: 1.18-1.40; P = 1.8 × 10 (-) (8)). Functional annotations suggest that the TNFSF10 gene may be involved in breast cancer aetiology, but further functional experiments are needed. In addition, we confirmed SNP rs10069690 was the best indicator for ER-negative breast cancer at 5p15.33 (OR = 1.30; P = 2.4 × 10 (-) (10)) and identified rs12998806 as the best indicator for ER-positive breast cancer at 2q35 (OR = 1.34; P = 2.2 × 10 (-) (8)) for women of African ancestry. These findings demonstrated additional susceptibility alleles for breast cancer can be revealed in diverse populations and have important public health implications in building race/ethnicity-specific risk prediction model for breast cancer

Characterizing Genetic Susceptibility to Breast Cancer in Women of African Ancestry

Background: Genome-wide association studies have identified approximately 100 common genetic variants associated with breast cancer risk, the majority of which were discovered in women of European ancestry. Because of different patterns of linkage disequilibrium, many of these genetic markers may not represent signals in populations of African ancestry. Methods: We tested 74 breast cancer risk variants and conducted fine-mapping of these susceptibility regions in 6,522 breast cancer cases and 7,643 controls of African ancestry from three genetic consortia (AABC, AMBER, and ROOT). Results: Fifty-four of the 74 variants (73%) were found to have ORs that were directionally consistent with those previously reported, of which 12 were nominally statistically significant ( P < 0.05). Through fine-mapping, in six regions ( 3p24, 12p11, 14q13, 16q12/FTO, 16q23, 19p13 ), we observed seven markers that better represent the underlying risk variant for overall breast cancer or breast cancer subtypes, whereas in another two regions ( 11q13, 16q12/TOX3 ), we identified suggestive evidence of signals that are independent of the reported index variant. Overlapping chromatin features and regulatory elements suggest that many of the risk alleles lie in regions with biological functionality. Conclusions: Through fine-mapping of known susceptibility regions, we have revealed alleles that better characterize breast cancer risk in women of African ancestry. Impact: The risk alleles identified represent genetic markers for modeling and stratifying breast cancer risk in women of African ancestry. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(7); 1-11. ©2017 AACR

A genome-wide association study of breast cancer in women of African ancestry

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in diverse populations are needed to reveal variants that are more common and/or limited to defined populations. We conducted a GWAS of breast cancer in women of African ancestry, with genotyping of > 1,000,000 SNPs in 3,153 African American cases and 2,831 controls, and replication testing of the top 66 associations in an additional 3,607 breast cancer cases and 11,330 controls of African ancestry. Two of the 66 SNPs replicated (p < 0.05) in stage 2, which reached statistical significance levels of 10−6 and 10−5 in the stage 1 and 2 combined analysis (rs4322600 at chromosome 14q31: OR = 1.18, p = 4.3×10−6; rs10510333 at chromosome 3p26: OR = 1.15, p = 1.5×10−5). These suggestive risk loci have not been identified in previous GWAS in other populations and will need to be examined in additional samples. Identification of novel risk variants for breast cancer in women of African ancestry will demand testing of a substantially larger set of markers from stage 1 in a larger replication sample

Evolution of China’s water issues as framed in Chinese mainstream newspaper

There is an urgent need globally to trigger fundamental societal changes in water management away from existing unsustainable paradigms. This paper attempts to understand the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in China by analyzing water-related articles in a major national newspaper, the People's Daily, over the period 1946-2012 using a content analysis approach. The major findings include the following: (1) water issues were in relatively prominent positions in the newspaper; (2) the reporting of water issues in China experienced three stages: 1946 to the middle of 1980s-flood and drought control and water for food production, the middle of 1980s to 1997-water for economic development, and 1998 to the present-water for the environmental sustainability and economic development; (3) the reporting of water issues in the People's Daily clearly reflected China's top-down water resources management system, and no "real" public opinions on water were reported during the study period; and (4) the People's Daily is just a wind vane of Chinese mainstream values and policies on water. The findings supported the realist assumption that the societal value changes on water issues in China were triggered by a range of factors including biophysical pressure (floods and droughts), political campaign (the Cultural Revolution), macro-economic reform (Reform and Opening-up), water institutional arrangement (the Water Law), and water management reform (the No. 1 Central Document on water reform). While there are similarities and differences between this study and other studies, important implications for more sustainable water management are a need to strengthen academic specialists' and NGO's voices in the newspaper to create a better informed public, and to stimulate practices toward sustainable water use

Ambient fine particulate pollution and daily morbidity of stroke in Chengdu, China.

INTRODUCTION:Association has been reported between ambient fine particulate matter (PM) and adverse outcomes of cerebrovascular events. However, it remains unclear that whether short-term exposure to PM relates to stroke and the lag of health effects. This triggers us to examine the relationship between PM and population stroke morbidity in Chengdu. METHODS:The daily average concentration of atmospheric pollutants and meteorological factors and daily morbidity of stroke in Chengdu (2013-2015) were collected. Based on time series analysis-generalized additive models (GAM), single-pollutant, two-pollutant and multi-pollutant model were established. The effects of atmospheric PM2.5 (defined as PM less than 2.5μm in aerodynamic diameter), PMc(defined as PM less than 10μm and more than 2.5μm in aerodynamic diameter) and PM10 (defined as PM less than 10μm in aerodynamic diameter) concentration on the daily mortality of stroke were analyzed, respectively. RESULTS:The three-year mean concentrations of PM2.5, PMc and PM10 for air pollutants were 75.9, 43.9 and 119.7 μg/m3, respectively. PM2.5 on the current day (lag0) and with a moving average of 0-1 days were significantly associated with the increasing risk of stroke morbidity, and PM2.5 with a lag of 0-1 days had greater association, whereas for PMc and PM10 there were no significant association observed. In our study, every 10μg/m3 increase of PM2.5 was associated with 0.69% percent change in stroke morbidity (95%CI: 0.01~1.38). For females, every 10μg/m3 increase of PM2.5 contributes to 0.80% percent change of onset. And for the group of age less than 65, we observed 0.78% higher risk every 10μg/m3 increase of PM2.5. CONCLUSIONS:These findings suggest that short-term exposure to PM2.5 within 1 day is associated with the onset of stroke, and the younger people (age<65) and females are more sensitive than older people and males