Publications

Objective Associations of overall and regional body fat measured by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry with total and cause‐specific mortality in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999‐2006 were investigated. Methods This study included 9,471 participants (≥20 years) free of major chronic diseases at baseline. Death information was obtained from the National Death Index (mean follow‐up duration: 8.8 years). Results A total of 682 participants died after 12 months since baseline, with 206 and 170 deaths attributed to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancer, respectively. The second quartile of fat mass percentages (FM%) was used as the reference to account for potential nonlinearity. In the multivariate‐adjusted model, participants in the highest quartile of total FM% had increased total mortality; hazard ratio (HR; 95% confidence interval, 95% CI) was 1.48 (1.07‐2.04; P < 0.05). Higher total and trunk FM%, but not leg FM%, were significantly associated with an increased CVD mortality; HRs (95% CIs) in the highest quartiles of total, trunk, and leg FM% were 2.24 (1.17‐4.31), 1.93 (1.02‐3.66), and 1.50 (0.77‐2.94), respectively. Conclusions Higher total body fat was associated with increased total mortality in U.S. adults. Higher total and trunk fat contents were also associated with increased CVD mortality, although fat accumulation in the lower body was not an independent predictor of mortality.

This cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence and correlates of lower-extremity amputation (LEA) in a Saudi population with diabetic foot ulcer. The study population consisted of 91 participants, with a median age of 55.0 years. Biomarkers were measured following standard protocols. Local symptoms of foot ulcer, including peripheral neuropathy (PN), peripheral artery disease (PAD), and foot infection were diagnosed by standard objective diagnostic tools or diagnosed clinically by a specialized surgeon. The severity of foot ulcer was classified according to the Wagner wound classification system. The prevalence of LEA was 29.7% in this population. The odds ratio for LEA comparing extreme tertiles was 2.42 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.70-8.45; P for trend = .03) for ulcer size and 0.22 (95% CI = 0.06-0.87; P for trend = .03) for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. C-reactive protein and homocysteine levels were each positively associated with odds of LEA, but the associations became nonsignificant in multivariable models. Participants with foot infection showed a significantly higher adjusted prevalence of LEA (40.7%, 95% CI = 27.1%-54.3%) compared with those without foot infections (19.3%, 95% CI = 6.0%-32.4%, P = .03). Participants with Wagner grade ≥3 presented a significantly higher prevalence (40.5%, 95% CI = 27.8%-53.2%) than those with Wagner grade of 1 or 2 (16.4%, 95% CI = 2.4%-30.5%, P = .02). Participants with PN and PAD showed nonsignificantly higher prevalence of LEA. We found a relatively high prevalence of LEA as well as several clinical markers and local symptoms associated with LEA in this Saudi population with diabetic foot ulcer.

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Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of smoking and snuffing habits in association with dental caries occurrence in a male cohort born in the early 1990s in Finland. The impact of health behaviours and factors related to the place of residence were included in analyses. Materials and methods. Oral health of 8537 conscripts was screened in a cross-sectional study. In the same occasion they also answered a questionnaire covering their smoking and snuffing habits and other background factors. The residence-related factors were obtained from the Defence Forces' database. Cross-tabulation together with chi-squared test and generalized linear mixed models were used for analyses. Results. Almost forty per cent (39.4%) of the men reported smoking daily and 9.0% reported daily snuffing. Restorative treatment need of those who reported frequent smoking was more than 2-fold (mean DT = 2.22) compared to the non-smokers (mean DT = 1.07). Smoking was statistically significantly associated with other harmful health behaviours. The snuffers reported more snacking than the non-smokers, but were most frequent brushers. The result from the statistical modelling showed that smoking, low tooth brushing frequency, eating sweets and consuming energy drinks frequently were significantly associated with restorative treatment need. Conclusion. In this cross-sectional study, association between smoking and dental caries was distinct. The high rate of restorative treatment need among smokers may be explained by their poor health behaviours. Dietary habits of the snuffers seem harmful too, but are compensated by good tooth brushing frequency.

'Pyroelectricity' published in 'Encyclopedia of Nanotechnology'

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported an error in data extraction.This error affected some cancer-related results, however the conclusions and key findings remain unchanged after the error was corrected.Specifically, relative risks extracted from Fraser (1999) [2] were misinterpreted.The title of Table 7 by Fraser is "Incidence and relative risk of common cancers in Seventh-day Adventist vegetarians compared with nonvegetarians", suggests that the associations are for vegetarians, using the non-vegetarians as the comparison group, but the text in the Results section suggests the opposite.The authors regret not reading the text carefully.All changes before and after the correction are presented in Table 1.The section of the content of the updated manuscript are also included.The original Table 1, Figure 4, Supplementary Figure S2, S6, S8, S11-S12 are updated, and the original and corrected table and figures are presented below.

Tooth development is a highly heritable process which relates to other growth and developmental processes, and which interacts with the development of the entire craniofacial complex.Abnormalities of tooth development are common, with tooth agenesis being the most common developmental anomaly in humans.We performed a genome-wide association study of time to first tooth eruption and number of teeth at one year in 4,564 individuals from the 1966 Northern Finland Birth Cohort (NFBC1966) and 1,518 individuals from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).We identified 5 loci at P,5610 28 , and 5 with suggestive association (P,5610 26 ).The loci included several genes with links to tooth and other organ development (KCNJ2, EDA, HOXB2, RAD51L1, IGF2BP1, HMGA2, MSRB3).Genes at four of the identified loci are implicated in the development of cancer.A variant within the HOXB gene cluster associated with occlusion defects requiring orthodontic treatment by age 31 years.

Background: Low plasma HDL-cholesterol concentrations are a hallmark of diabetic dyslipidemia. A common polymorphism (514C3T) of the hepatic lipase gene (LIPC), which accounts for up to 30% of the variation in hepatic lipase activity, has been associated with low hepatic lipase activity and high HDL-cholesterol concentrations. Objective: We examined the association between this polymorphism and plasma HDL-cholesterol concentrations and evaluated whether this association was modified by adiposity and dietary fat intake. Design: We followed men aged 40–75 y who participated in the HealthProfessionalsFollow-UpStudyin1986.Among18 159men who returned blood samples by 1994, 780 had confirmed type 2 diabetesatblooddrawingorduringfollow-upto1998andwerefree of cardiovascular disease at blood drawing. Results: After adjustment for age, smoking, alcohol consumption, fastingstatus,glycatedhemoglobinconcentration,physicalactivity, and body mass index, HDL-cholesterol concentrations were significantlyhigherinmenwiththeC/TorT/Tgenotypethaninthosewith the C/C genotype (adjusted x: 40.9 and 38.8 mg/dL, respectively; P 0.01). We observed significant LIPC 514 polymorphism body mass index and LIPC 514 polymorphism saturated fat intake interactions for HDL-cholesterol concentrations (P 0.003 for both). The T allele was associated with higher HDL-cholesterol concentrations only in men who were not overweight or who had higher saturated fat intake. Conclusion:Ourstudysuggeststhattheeffectsof514C3Tofthe LIPC gene on HDL concentrations were modified by saturated fat intake and obesity. Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81:1429–35.

Type 2 diabetes and dyslipidemias co-occur frequently with severe mental illnesses (SMI). However, less is known about serum insulin and lipid levels and prevalence of Insulin Resistance (IR) in offspring with familial risk for SMI.The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 consists of 12,068 mothers, 11,068 fathers, and 12,231 children from the two northernmost provinces in Finland. At age 46 they participated in clinical examination including measurements of glucose, lipids, and IR and answered a questionnaire including information about their nutrition and physical activity. The information on parental SMI was obtained from the Hospital Discharge Register. Parents with SMI were those who had been treated in hospital for any psychiatric disorder during 1969-1982 (ICD-8 codes 290-315). The final study group included 334 (7.3 %) offspring who had a parent with SMI and 4249 (92.7 %) offspring in the comparison group.We did not find increased risk for disturbances in lipid levels, insulin levels, or IR levels between the study group (offspring of either parent with SMI) compared with the comparison group. All offspring, especially female offspring of either parent with SMI, had an increased risk for higher glucose levels and waist circumference. The results remained the same after excluding offspring with SMI.Our findings suggest that offspring of parents with SMI, especially female offspring, have partly increased risk for disturbances in cardiometabolic risk factors. Disturbances in glucose metabolism may have an effect via familial risk of severe mental illness.