Dietary flavonoid intake and incidence of erectile dysfunction

Background: The predominant etiology for erectile dysfunction (ED) is vascular, however limited data are available on the role of diet. A higher intake of several flavonoids reduces diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk but no studies have examined associations between flavonoids and erectile function.   Objective: To examine the relationship between habitual flavonoid sub-class intakes and incidence of ED.   Methods: We conducted a prospective study among 25,096 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Total flavonoid and subclass intakes were calculated from food frequency questionnaires collected every 4 years. Participants rated their erectile function in 2000 (with historical reporting from 1986) and again in 2004 and 2008.   Results: During 10 years of follow-up, 35.6% reported incident ED. After multivariate adjustment, including classic CVD risk factors, several sub-classes were associated with reduced ED incidence; specifically flavones (RR 0.91:95%CI=0.85,0.97; p-trend=0.006), flavanones (RR 0.89;95%CI=0.83,0.95; p-trend=0.0009), and anthocyanins (RR 0.91;95%CI=0.85,0.98; p-trend=0.002) comparing extreme intakes. The results remained significant after additional adjustment for a composite dietary intake score. In analyses stratified by age, a higher intake of flavanones, anthocyanins and flavones was significantlyassociated with a reduction in risk of erectile dysfunction only in men <70 years old and not older men (11-16% reduction in risk (p - interaction 0.002, 0.03, 0.007 for flavones, flavanones and anthocyanins respectively). In food-based analysis, higher total fruit intake, major sources of anthocyanins and flavanones, was associated with 14% reduction in risk of ED (RR 0.86;95%CI=0.79,0.92; p=0.002).The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition AJCN/2015/122010 Version 3.    Conclusions : These data suggest that a higher habitual intake of specific 24 flavonoid-rich foods are associated with reduced ED incidence. Intervention trials are needed to further examine the impact of increasing intakes of commonly consumed flavonoid-rich foods on men’s health

Dietary flavonoid intake and weight maintenance: three prospective cohorts of 124,086 US men and women followed for up to 24 years

Objective: To examine whether dietary intake of specific flavonoid sub-classes is associated with weight change over time, including flavonols, flavones, flavanones, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers. Design: Three prospective cohort studies. Setting: Health professionals in the United States. Participants: 124,086 men and women participating in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS), Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), and Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II). Main outcome measure: Self-reported change in weight over multiple 4-year time intervals between 1986 and 2011. Results: Increased consumption of most flavonoid sub-classes, including flavonols, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers was inversely associated with weight change over 4-year time intervals, after adjustment for simultaneous changes in other lifestyle factors including other aspects of diet, smoking status, and physical activity. In the pooled results, the greatest magnitude of association was observed for anthocyanins (-0.22 lbs, 95% CI -0.30 to -0.15 lbs per additional SD/day, 10 mg), flavonoid polymers (-0.18 lbs, 95% CI -0.28 to -0.08 lbs per additional SD/day, 138 mg), and flavonols (-0.16 lbs, 95% CI -0.26 to -0.06 lbs per additional SD/day, 7 mg). After additional adjustment for fiber intake associations remained significant for anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, and total flavonoid polymers but were attenuated and no longer statistically significant for other sub-classes. Conclusions: Higher intake of foods rich in flavonols, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers, may contribute to weight maintenance in adulthood, and may help to refine dietary recommendations for the prevention of obesity and its potential sequelae

Pan-cancer classifications of tumor histological images using deep learning

Histopathological images are essential for the diagnosis of cancer type and selection of optimal treatment. However, the current clinical process of manual inspection of images is time consuming and prone to intra- and inter-observer variability. Here we show that key aspects of cancer image analysis can be performed by deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) across a wide spectrum of cancer types. In particular, we implement CNN architectures based on Google Inception v3 transfer learning to analyze 27815 H&E slides from 23 cohorts in The Cancer Genome Atlas in studies of tumor/normal status, cancer subtype, and mutation status. For 19 solid cancer types we are able to classify tumor/normal status of whole slide images with extremely high AUCs (0.995±0.008). We are also able to classify cancer subtypes within 10 tissue types with AUC values well above random expectations (micro-average 0.87±0.1). We then perform a cross-classification analysis of tumor/normal status across tumor types. We find that classifiers trained on one type are often effective in distinguishing tumor from normal in other cancer types, with the relationships among classifiers matching known cancer tissue relationships. For the more challenging problem of mutational status, we are able to classify TP53 mutations in three cancer types with AUCs from 0.65-0.80 using a fully-trained CNN, and with similar cross-classification accuracy across tissues. These studies demonstrate the power of CNNs for not only classifying histopathological images in diverse cancer types, but also for revealing shared biology between tumors. We have made software available at: https://github.com/javadnoorb/HistCNNFirst author draf

Changes in Alcohol Consumption and Subsequent Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men

Objective -The objective of this study was to investigate the association of four-year changes in alcohol consumption with subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes. Research Design and Methods - We prospectively examined 38,031 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study free of diagnosed diabetes or cancer in 1990. Alcohol consumption was reported on food frequency questionnaires and updated every four years. Results - A total of 1905 cases of type 2 diabetes occurred during 428,497 person-years of follow-up. A 7.5 g/day (~half a glass) increase in alcohol consumption over four years was associated with lower diabetes risk among initial nondrinkers (multivariable hazard ratio [HR] 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.60-1.00) and drinkers initially consumin

Apolipoprotein E in VLDL and LDL With Apolipoprotein C‐III is Associated With a Lower Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

Background: Low‐density lipoprotein (LDL) with apolipoprotein C‐III (apoC‐III) is the lipoprotein species that most strongly predicts initial and recurring coronary heart disease (CHD) events in several cohorts. Thus, a large portion of the CHD risk conferred by LDL may be attributable to LDL that contains apoC‐III. Very‐low‐density lipoprotein (VLDL) and LDL with apoC‐III have varying amounts of apoE. We hypothesized that a high content of apoE lessens the adverse influence of apoC‐III on the risk of CHD because it promotes the clearance of VLDL and LDL from plasma. Methods and Results: We studied 2 independent cohorts, the Nurses' Health Study, composed of women, and the Health Professionals Follow‐up Study, composed of men. These cohorts contributed to this study 322 women and 418 men initially free of CVD who developed a fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction during 10 to 14 years of follow‐up and matched controls who remained free of CHD. The apoE content of LDL with apoC‐III was inversely associated with CHD after multivariable adjustment (relative risk for top versus bottom quintile 0.53, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.80). The apoE content of VLDL with apoC‐III had a similar inverse association with CHD. The highest risks were associated with a high apoB concentration and a low apoE content of LDL with apoC‐III or of VLDL+LDL with apoC‐III. The observed associations were in both male and female cohorts and independent of traditional CHD risk factors and of C‐reactive protein. Conclusions: An increased apoE content in VLDL and LDL with apoC‐III was associated with a lower risk of CHD. Strategies to enrich VLDL and LDL in apoE are worth exploring for the prevention of CHD

Metatranscriptome of human faecal microbial communities in a cohort of adult men

The gut microbiome is intimately related to human health, but it is not yet known which functional activities are driven by specific microorganisms\u27 ecological configurations or transcription. We report a large-scale investigation of 372 human faecal metatranscriptomes and 929 metagenomes from a subset of 308 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. We identified a metatranscriptomic \u27core\u27 universally transcribed over time and across participants, often by different microorganisms. In contrast to the housekeeping functions enriched in this core, a \u27variable\u27 metatranscriptome included specialized pathways that were differentially expressed both across participants and among microorganisms. Finally, longitudinal metagenomic profiles allowed ecological interaction network reconstruction, which remained stable over the six-month timespan, as did strain tracking within and between participants. These results provide an initial characterization of human faecal microbial ecology into core, subject-specific, microorganism-specific and temporally variable transcription, and they differentiate metagenomically versus metatranscriptomically informative aspects of the human faecal microbiome

Physical inactivity and idiopathic pulmonary embolism in women: prospective study

Objectives To determine the association between physical inactivity (that is, a sedentary lifestyle) and incident idiopathic pulmonary embolism

Apolipoprotein C-III as a Potential Modulator of the Association Between HDL-Cholesterol and Incident Coronary Heart Disease

Background: High-density lipoproteins (HDL) are structurally and metabolically heterogeneous and subclasses with differential effects on coronary heart disease (CHD) might exist. Apolipoprotein (apo) C-III, a small proinflammatory protein that resides on the surface of lipoproteins, enhances the atherogenicity of VLDL and LDL particles, but little is known about the role apoC-III on HDL. We investigated whether the presence or absence of apoC-III differentiates HDL into subtypes with nonprotective or protective associations with risk of future CHD. Methods and Results: High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels were measured in plasma separated according to apoC-III (by immunoaffinity chromatography) in two prospective case-control studies nested within the Nurses’ Health and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Studies. Baseline was in 1990 and 1994, and 634 incident CHD cases were documented through 10 to 14 years of follow-up. The relative risk of CHD per each standard deviation of total HDL-C was 0.78 (95% confidence intervals, 0.63–0.96). The HDL-C subtypes were differentially associated with risk of CHD, HDL-C without apoC-III inversely and HDL-C with apoC-III directly (P=0.02 for a difference between the HDL types). The relative risk per standard deviation of HDL-C without apoC-III was 0.66 (0.53 to 0.93) and 1.18 (1.03 to 1.34) for HDL-C with apoC-III. HDL-C with apoC-III comprised ∼13% of the total HDL-C. Adjustment for triglycerides and apoB attenuated the risks; however, the two HDL-C subgroups remained differentially associated with risk of CHD (P=0.05). Conclusion: Separating HDL-C according to apoC-III identified two types of HDL with opposing associations with risk of CHD. The proatherogenic effects of apoC-III, as a component of VLDL and LDL, may extend to HDL. (J Am Heart Assoc. 2012;1:jah3-e000232 doi: 10.1161/JAHA.111.000232.