In an observational study involving nearly 440,000 veterans, both the BNT162b2 vaccine and the mRNA-1273 vaccine were highly effective at preventing infection, hospitalization, and death from ...Covid-19. Infection risks were approximately 21% lower with mRNA-1273 than with BNT162b2. Follow-up included periods when either the alpha variant or the delta variant was dominant.
Summary Background Around 80% of all cardiovascular deaths occur in developing countries. Assessment of those patients at high risk is an important strategy for prevention. Since developing countries ...have limited resources for prevention strategies that require laboratory testing, we assessed if a risk prediction method that did not require any laboratory tests could be as accurate as one requiring laboratory information. Methods The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was a prospective cohort study of 14 407 US participants aged between 25–74 years at the time they were first examined (between 1971 and 1975). Our follow-up study population included participants with complete information on these surveys who did not report a history of cardiovascular disease (myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, angina) or cancer, yielding an analysis dataset N=6186. We compared how well either method could predict first-time fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease events in this cohort. For the laboratory-based model, which required blood testing, we used standard risk factors to assess risk of cardiovascular disease: age, systolic blood pressure, smoking status, total cholesterol, reported diabetes status, and current treatment for hypertension. For the non-laboratory-based model, we substituted body-mass index for cholesterol. Findings In the cohort of 6186, there were 1529 first-time cardiovascular events and 578 (38%) deaths due to cardiovascular disease over 21 years. In women, the laboratory-based model was useful for predicting events, with a c statistic of 0·829. The c statistic of the non-laboratory-based model was 0·831. In men, the results were similar (0·784 for the laboratory-based model and 0·783 for the non-laboratory-based model). Results were similar between the laboratory-based and non-laboratory-based models in both men and women when restricted to fatal events only. Interpretation A method that uses non-laboratory-based risk factors predicted cardiovascular events as accurately as one that relied on laboratory-based values. This approach could simplify risk assessment in situations where laboratory testing is inconvenient or unavailable.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Cardiovascular risk assessment has become an essential part of preventive strategies designed to target risk factor interventions and has contributed to dramatic reductions in cardiovascular disease ...mortality during the past 60 years in the US and other countries. Beginning in the 1960s, investigators from the Framingham Heart study identified key physiological, behavioral, and biochemical risk factors for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and were the first to develop multivariable risk equations using major risk factors to predict first-time fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction and later atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease events during a period of up to 12 years. These risk equations are able to explain about 70% to 80% of the variability of cardiovascular risk in the populations in which they were derived. The generalizability of these early tools has been enhanced by using large, diverse, pooled cohorts in the US (American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Pooled Cohort Risk Equation), Europe (European Society of Cardiology Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation 2 SCORE2), and elsewhere. Since their development, many attempts to improve the models have been pursued, yet the basic models have stood the test of time.
In this trial, 1150 patients undergoing coronary-artery bypass grafting were assigned to open or endoscopic vein-graft harvesting. At a median of 2.78 years, there was no significant difference ...between the groups in the rate of the composite of death from any cause, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or repeat revascularization.
CONTEXT The initial report of the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) found no reduction in risk of prostate cancer with either selenium or vitamin E supplements but a ...statistically nonsignificant increase in prostate cancer risk with vitamin E. Longer follow-up and more prostate cancer events provide further insight into the relationship of vitamin E and prostate cancer. OBJECTIVE To determine the long-term effect of vitamin E and selenium on risk of prostate cancer in relatively healthy men. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 35 533 men from 427 study sites in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico were randomized between August 22, 2001, and June 24, 2004. Eligibility criteria included a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) of 4.0 ng/mL or less, a digital rectal examination not suspicious for prostate cancer, and age 50 years or older for black men and 55 years or older for all others. The primary analysis included 34 887 men who were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups: 8752 to receive selenium; 8737, vitamin E; 8702, both agents, and 8696, placebo. Analysis reflect the final data collected by the study sites on their participants through July 5, 2011. INTERVENTIONS Oral selenium (200 μg/d from L-selenomethionine) with matched vitamin E placebo, vitamin E (400 IU/d of all rac-α-tocopheryl acetate) with matched selenium placebo, both agents, or both matched placebos for a planned follow-up of a minimum of 7 and maximum of 12 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Prostate cancer incidence. RESULTS This report includes 54 464 additional person-years of follow-up and 521 additional cases of prostate cancer since the primary report. Compared with the placebo (referent group) in which 529 men developed prostate cancer, 620 men in the vitamin E group developed prostate cancer (hazard ratio HR, 1.17; 99% CI, 1.004-1.36, P = .008); as did 575 in the selenium group (HR, 1.09; 99% CI, 0.93-1.27; P = .18), and 555 in the selenium plus vitamin E group (HR, 1.05; 99% CI, 0.89-1.22, P = .46). Compared with placebo, the absolute increase in risk of prostate cancer per 1000 person-years was 1.6 for vitamin E, 0.8 for selenium, and 0.4 for the combination. CONCLUSION Dietary supplementation with vitamin E significantly increased the risk of prostate cancer among healthy men. TRIAL REGISTRATION Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00006392
Fried food consumption and its effects on cardiovascular disease are still subjects of debate. The objective of this review was to summarize current evidence on the association between fried food ...consumption and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and obesity and to recommend directions for future research. We used PubMed, Google Scholar and Medline searches to retrieve pertinent publications. Most available data were based on questionnaires as a tool to capture fried food intakes, and study design was limited to case-control and cohort studies. While few studies have reported a positive association between frequencies of fried food intake and risk of coronary artery disease, heart failure, diabetes or hypertension, other investigators have failed to confirm such an association. There is strong evidence suggesting a higher risk of developing chronic disease when fried foods are consumed more frequently (i.e., four or more times per week). Major gaps in the current literature include a lack of detailed information on the type of oils used for frying foods, stratification of the different types of fried food, frying procedure (deep and pan frying), temperature and duration of frying, how often oils were reused and a lack of consideration of overall dietary patterns. Besides addressing these gaps, future research should also develop tools to better define fried food consumption at home versus away from home and to assess their effects on chronic diseases. In summary, the current review provides enough evidence to suggest adverse health effects with higher frequency of fried food consumption. While awaiting confirmation from future studies, it may be advisable to the public to consume fried foods in moderation while emphasizing an overall healthy diet.
Federal health agency leaders describe plans to develop infrastructure for generating high-quality evidence to improve care. They argue that it will be necessary to embed research in clinical care, ...create interoperable research data networks, and apply new research methods.
Making better choices about health and health care requires the best possible evidence. Unfortunately, many of the decisions made today in our health care system are not supported by high-quality evidence
1
–
4
derived from randomized, controlled trials or well-designed observational studies. But as rich, diverse sources of digital data become widely available for research and as analytical tools continue to grow in power and sophistication, the research and health care communities now have the opportunity to quickly and efficiently generate the scientific evidence needed to support improved decision making about health and health care.
The pursuit of high-quality, data-driven evidence . . .
Dyslipidemia and the Risk of Incident Hypertension in Men Halperin, Ruben O; Sesso, Howard D; Ma, Jing ...
Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. 1979),
2006-January, 2006, 2006-Jan, 2006-01-00, 20060101, Volume:
47, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Evidence suggests that hypertension may share a similar pathophysiology with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Thus, dyslipidemia, a strong predictor of CVD, may also predict incident hypertension. We ...analyzed 3110 men free of hypertension, CVD, and cancer from the Physicians’ Health Study, who provided baseline blood samples from which we measured total cholesterol (TC) and HDL cholesterol (HDL-C), and calculated non-HDL-C and the TC/HDL-C ratio. We categorized each lipid parameter into quintiles and considered National Cholesterol Education Project clinical cut points. Other risk factor information was provided from self-reports on the baseline questionnaire. Incident hypertension was defined as either the initiation of antihypertensive treatment, self-reported systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg, or diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mm Hg. Over a mean follow-up of 14.1 years, 1019 men developed hypertension. In Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for lifestyle and clinical risk factors, men in the highest quintile of TC, non-HDL-C, and TC/HDL-C ratio had increased risks of developing hypertension of 23%, 39%, and 54%, respectively, compared with participants in the lowest quintile. Furthermore, men in the highest quintile of HDL-C had a 32% decreased risk of developing hypertension compared with those in the lowest quintile. Models using National Cholesterol Education Project cut points demonstrated similar associations with hypertension. Models excluding men with diabetes and obesity maintained an independent association between baseline lipids and hypertension. These prospective cohort data suggest that dyslipidemias may lead to the subsequent development of hypertension. Thus, plasma lipids may be useful in the identification of men at risk for hypertension.
Limited data suggest that athletes may have a higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF); however, there has been no large prospective assessment of the relation between vigorous exercise and ...AF. Logistic regression analyses stratified by time were used to assess the association between frequency of vigorous exercise and risk of developing AF in 16,921 apparently healthy men in the Physicians' Health Study. During 12 years of follow-up, 1,661 men reported developing AF. With increasing frequency of vigorous exercise (0, 1, 1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 7 days/week), multivariate relative risks for the full cohort were 1.0 (referent), 0.90, 1.09, 1.04, and 1.20 (p = 0.04). This risk was not significantly increased when exercise habits were updated or in models excluding variables that may be in the biological pathway through which exercise influences AF risk. In subgroup analyses, this increased risk was observed only in men <50 years of age (1.0, 0.94, 1.20, 1.05, 1.74, p <0.01) and joggers (1.0, 0.91, 1.03, 1.30, 1.53, p <0.01), where risks remained increased in all analyses. In conclusion, frequency of vigorous exercise was associated with an increased risk of developing AF in young men and joggers. This risk decreased as the population aged and was offset by known beneficial effects of vigorous exercise on other AF risk factors.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Reducing platelet activity with aspirin and other antiplatelet agents is an important factor in the prevention and management of atherothrombotic vascular events. For this indication, aspirin has ...both beneficial and potentially harmful effects; it can diminish or reverse thrombus formation (eg, in the setting of acute myocardial infarction or stroke), but it also increases the risk of bleeding.
PDF
