Subjective health complaints in adolescence: a cross-national comparison of prevalence and dimensionality

Background. The purpose of this work was to study the prevalence and dimensionality of subjective health complaints in a cross-national population of adolescents.Method. The analyses were based on data from a WHO cross-national survey, Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). The study included a representative sample of 11, 13 and 15-year-old adolescents from Finland, Norway, Poland and Scotland. Data were collected in 1993-1994 and the total sample included 20,324 adolescents. Subjective health complaints were measured by the HBSC Symptom Checklist (HBSC-SCL), including headaches, abdominal pain, backache, feeling low, irritability, nervousness, sleeping difficulties and dizziness. Descriptive analyses, MANOVA and structural equation modelling (EQS) were conducted.Results. Patterns of reporting were consistent for all four countries. A large number of students reported a high level of symptoms. The reporting of most symptoms increased with age. Girls reported significantly more symptoms than boys and the gender differences also increased with age. Structural equation modelling suggests a model of two correlated factors, which can be labelled psychological and somatic.Conclusion. The findings of this study indicate that students report a high level of subjective health complaints already at the age of 11 years. The reporting of most symptoms increases with age and more so for girls than for boys. The finding of two dimensions that differ qualitatively, suggests that these dimensions may have different etiologies

Getting to the Heart of Alzheimer Disease

In a somewhat narrow diagnostic lens, Alzheimer disease (AD) has been considered a brain-specific disease characterized by the presence of A\u3b2 (\u3b2-amyloid) plaques and tau neural fibrillary tangles and neural inflammation; these pathologies lead to neuronal death and consequently clinical symptoms, such as memory loss, confusion, and impaired cognitive function. However, for decades, researchers have noticed a link between various cardiovascular abnormalities and AD - such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, and vasculopathy. A considerable volume of work has pointed at this head to heart connection, focusing mainly on associations between cerebral hypoperfusion and neuronal degradation. However, new evidence of a possible systemic or metastatic profile to AD calls for further analysis of this connection. A\u3b2 aggregations - biochemically and structurally akin to those found in the typical AD pathology - are now known to be present in the hearts of individuals with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, as well as the hearts of patients with AD. These findings suggest a potential systemic profile of proteinopathies and a new hypothesis for the link between peripheral and central symptoms of heart failure and AD. Herein, we provide an overview of the cardiovascular links to Alzheimer disease