Bmc Med
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Although obesity has been associated with risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), the associations of variability of obesity measures with AF risk are uncertain, and longitudinal studies among Chinese population are still lacking. We aimed to evaluate the impacts of obesity and variability of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) on the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) in a large Chinese cohort study. ⋯ Elevated levels of BMI and WC were associated with an increased risk of AF, whereas variability in BMI and WC were not. Therefore, achieving optimal levels of BMI and WC could be valuable in AF prevention.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
STOP- a training intervention to optimise treatment for smoking cessation in community pharmacies: cluster randomised controlled trial.
Community pharmacies serve people with high levels of tobacco-related illness, but throughput in NHS Stop Smoking Services in pharmacies remains relatively low. We investigated the effectiveness of a complex intervention to increase service uptake and retention. ⋯ We found high levels of retention and acceptable quit rates in the NHS pharmacy stop smoking service. Despite pharmacy staff providing positive feedback on the STOP intervention, it made no difference to service throughput. Thus, other factors may currently limit service capacity to help smokers to quit.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a recently discovered strain of coronavirus. The virus has spread rapidly, causing millions of death worldwide. Contrary to the predictions, prevalence and mortality due to COVID-19 have remained moderate on the African continent. Several factors, including age, genetics, vaccines, and co-infections, might impact the course of the pandemic in Africa. Helminths are highly endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa and are renowned for their ability to evade, skew, and suppress human immune responses through various immune-modulatory mechanisms. Such effects will likely impact SARS-CoV-2 transmission and disease progression. ⋯ Our data offer a plausible explanation for the moderate incidence of COVID-19 in Africa and support the hypothesis that helper T cell-mediated immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are mitigated in the presence of helminth antigens, while virus-specific cytotoxic T cell responses are maintained.
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The time of survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) varies greatly, and the genetic factors that contribute to the survival of ALS are not well studied. There is a lack of a comprehensive study to elucidate the role of genetic factors in the survival of ALS. ⋯ Our study summarized and contrasted evidence for prognostic genetic factors in ALS and would help to understand ALS pathogenesis and guide clinical trials and drug development.
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Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous risk genes for lacunar stroke, but it is challenging to decipher how they confer risk for the disease. We employed an integrative analytical pipeline to efficiently transform genetic associations to identify novel proteins for lacunar stroke. ⋯ Our present proteomic findings have identified ICA1L, CAND2, and ALDH2 as compelling genes that may give key hints for future functional research and possible therapeutic targets for lacunar stroke.