Brief Report Alshaarawy, Omayma; Anthony, James C.
Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.),
2015-July, Letnik:
26, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
BACKGROUND:In preclinical animal studies, evidence links cannabis with hyperphagia, obesity, and insulin resistance. Epidemiologic data, however, suggest an inverse cannabis smoking–diabetes mellitus ...association. Here, we offer epidemiologic estimates from eight independent replications from (1) the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, and (2) the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (2005–2012).
METHODS:For each national survey participant, computer-assisted self-interviews assess cannabis smoking and physician-diagnosed diabetes mellitus; the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys provide additional biomarker values and a composite diabetes diagnosis. Regression analyses produce estimates of cannabis smoking–diabetes associations. Meta-analyses summarize the replication estimates.
RESULTS:Recently active cannabis smoking and diabetes mellitus are inversely associated. The meta-analytic summary odds ratio is 0.7 (95% confidence interval = 0.6, 0.8).
CONCLUSIONS:Current evidence is too weak for causal inference, but there now is a more stable evidence base for new lines of clinical translational research on a possibly protective (or spurious) cannabis smoking–diabetes mellitus association suggested in prior research.
Summary With non-communicable conditions accounting for nearly two-thirds of deaths worldwide, the emergence of chronic diseases as the predominant challenge to global health is undisputed. In the ...USA, chronic diseases are the main causes of poor health, disability, and death, and account for most of health-care expenditures. The chronic disease burden in the USA largely results from a short list of risk factors—including tobacco use, poor diet and physical inactivity (both strongly associated with obesity), excessive alcohol consumption, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and hyperlipidaemia—that can be effectively addressed for individuals and populations. Increases in the burden of chronic diseases are attributable to incidence and prevalence of leading chronic conditions and risk factors (which occur individually and in combination), and population demographics, including ageing and health disparities. To effectively and equitably address the chronic disease burden, public health and health-care systems need to deploy integrated approaches that bundle strategies and interventions, address many risk factors and conditions simultaneously, create population-wide changes, help the population subgroups most affected, and rely on implementation by many sectors, including public–private partnerships and involvement from all stakeholders. To help to meet the chronic disease burden, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses four cross-cutting strategies: (1) epidemiology and surveillance to monitor trends and inform programmes; (2) environmental approaches that promote health and support healthy behaviours; (3) health system interventions to improve the effective use of clinical and other preventive services; and (4) community resources linked to clinical services that sustain improved management of chronic conditions. Establishment of community conditions to support healthy behaviours and promote effective management of chronic conditions will deliver healthier students to schools, healthier workers to employers and businesses, and a healthier population to the health-care system. Collectively, these four strategies will prevent the occurrence of chronic diseases, foster early detection and slow disease progression in people with chronic conditions, reduce complications, support an improved quality of life, and reduce demand on the health-care system. Of crucial importance, with strengthened collaboration between the public health and health-care sectors, the health-care system better uses prevention and early detection services, and population health is improved and sustained by solidifying collaborations between communities and health-care providers. This collaborative approach will improve health equity by building communities that promote health rather than disease, have more accessible and direct care, and focus the health-care system on improving population health.
This report is organized in such a way that the key policy options and strategic priorities are based on the country context, including the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and associated ...risk factors and the existing capacity of the health system. Chapter one describes the country and regional contexts and the evidence of the demographic and epidemiological transitions in Bangladesh; chapter two outlines the disease burden of major NCDs, including the equity and economic impact and the common risk factors; chapter three provides an assessment of the health system and its capacity to prevent and control major NCDs; chapter four summarizes ongoing NCD interventions and activities in Bangladesh and highlights the remaining gaps and challenges; and chapter five presents key policy options and strategic priorities to prevent and control NCDs.
Associations between food and beverage groups and the risk of diet‐related chronic disease (DRCD) have been the subject of intensive research in preventive nutrition. Pooled/meta‐analyses and ...systematic reviews (PMASRs) aim to better characterize these associations. To date, however, there has been no attempt to synthesize all PMASRs that have assessed the relationship between food and beverage groups and DRCDs. The objectives of this review were to aggregate PMASRs to obtain an overview of the associations between food and beverage groups (n = 17) and DRCDs (n = 10) and to establish new directions for future research needs. The present review of 304 PMASRs published between 1950 and 2013 confirmed that plant food groups are more protective than animal food groups against DRCDs. Within plant food groups, grain products are more protective than fruits and vegetables. Among animal food groups, dairy/milk products have a neutral effect on the risk of DRCDs, while red/processed meats tend to increase the risk. Among beverages, tea was the most protective and soft drinks the least protective against DRCDs. For two of the DRCDs examined, sarcopenia and kidney disease, no PMASR was found. Overweight/obesity, type 2 diabetes, and various types of cardiovascular disease and cancer accounted for 289 of the PMASRs. There is a crucial need to further study the associations between food and beverage groups and mental health, skeletal health, digestive diseases, liver diseases, kidney diseases, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
To ensure seriously ill people and their families receive high-quality primary and specialty palliative care services, rigorous methods are needed to prospectively identify this population.
To define ...and operationalize a definition of serious illness for the purpose of identifying patients and caregivers who need primary or specialty palliative care services.
Two stages of work included (1) building expert consensus around a conceptual definition of serious illness and (2) using the National Health and Aging Trends Study linked to Medicare claims data to test a range of operational definitions composed of diagnoses, utilization, and markers of care needs.
One-year outcomes included mean total Medicare costs, mortality, and percent hospitalized, as well as those reporting ≥2 measures of need and functional impairment. Sensitivity, specificity, and c-statistics (unadjusted and adjusted for age, sex, race, and Medicaid status) were calculated for each definition across the outcomes.
Conceptually, "Serious illness" is a health condition that carries a high risk of mortality AND either negatively impacts a person's daily function or quality of life, OR excessively strains their caregivers. The range of operational definitions simulated all had low sensitivity and high specificity across all outcomes. None of the definitions reached an unadjusted c-statistic >0.6 (or adjusted >0.7) for identifying a population with ≥2 indicators of care needs.
Standard administrative data are inadequate to identify this population. Defining the seriously ill denominator with high specificity, as described here, will focus efforts toward the highest-need segment of the population, who may indeed benefit most.
Abstract Chronic disease has become the great epidemic of our times, responsible for 75% of total health care costs and the majority of deaths in the US. Our current delivery model is poorly ...constructed to manage chronic disease, as evidenced by low adherence to quality indicators and poor control of treatable conditions. New technologies have emerged that can engage patients and offer additional modalities in the treatment of chronic disease. Modifying our delivery model to include team-based care in concert with patient-centered technologies offers great promise in managing the chronic disease epidemic.
Objective: Given the critical role of behavior in preventing and treating chronic diseases, it is important to accelerate the development of behavioral treatments that can improve chronic disease ...prevention and outcomes. Findings from basic behavioral and social sciences research hold great promise for addressing behaviorally based clinical health problems, yet there is currently no established pathway for translating fundamental behavioral science discoveries into health-related treatments ready for Phase III efficacy testing. This article provides a systematic framework for developing behavioral treatments for preventing and treating chronic diseases. Method: The Obesity-Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) model for behavioral treatment development features a flexible and progressive process, prespecified clinically significant milestones for forward movement, and return to earlier stages for refinement and optimization. Results: This article presents the background and rationale for the ORBIT model, a summary of key questions for each phase, a selection of study designs and methodologies well-suited to answering these questions, and prespecified milestones for forward or backward movement across phases. Conclusions: The ORBIT model provides a progressive, clinically relevant approach to increasing the number of evidence-based behavioral treatments available to prevent and treat chronic diseases.
Background:
Vitamin D is associated not only with effects on calcium and bone metabolisms but also with many chronic diseases. Low vitamin D levels in patients with Alzheimer's disease have been ...widely reported in the literature.
Aim:
The purpose of this study was to critically review the potential benefit of vitamin D supplementation in individuals with Alzheimer's disease living in the community.
Methods:
A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for papers published 2011–2018.
Results:
Seven papers were selected, consisting of one clinical trial, five cohort studies and one systematic review. Studies showed an association only between vitamin D deficiency and lower attention in older people. None of the reviewed studies provided evidence of a positive impact of vitamin D supplementation on cognitive function in older people with Alzheimer's disease.
Conclusion:
There was no evidence that vitamin D supplementation has a direct benefit for Alzheimer's disease. The review synthesised the existing body of knowledge and concluded that optimum levels of vitamin D (neither too low nor too high) do appear to have positive effects on patient outcomes and quality of life. It is still unclear why vitamin D intake is inadequate as people age. Further research is needed to clarify vitamin-D-related aspects of Alzheimer's disease.
Although the definition of multimorbidity as "the simultaneous presence of two or more chronic diseases" is well established, its operationalization is not yet agreed. This study aims to provide a ...clinically driven comprehensive list of chronic conditions to be included when measuring multimorbidity.
Based on a consensus definition of chronic disease, all four-digit level codes from the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10) were classified as chronic or not by an international and multidisciplinary team. Chronic ICD-10 codes were subsequently grouped into broader categories according to clinical criteria. Last, we showed proof of concept by applying the classification to older adults from the Swedish National study of Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K) using also inpatient data from the Swedish National Patient Register.
A disease or condition was considered to be chronic if it had a prolonged duration and either (a) left residual disability or worsening quality of life or (b) required a long period of care, treatment, or rehabilitation. After applying this definition in relation to populations of older adults, 918 chronic ICD-10 codes were identified and grouped into 60 chronic disease categories. In SNAC-K, 88.6% had ≥2 of these 60 disease categories, 73.2% had ≥3, and 55.8% had ≥4.
This operational measure of multimorbidity, which can be implemented using either or both clinical and administrative data, may facilitate its monitoring and international comparison. Once validated, it may enable the advancement and evolution of conceptual and theoretical aspects of multimorbidity that will eventually lead to better care.
The Social Determinants of Chronic Disease Cockerham, William C., PhD; Hamby, Bryant W., MA; Oates, Gabriela R., PhD
American journal of preventive medicine,
01/2017, Letnik:
52, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This review article addresses the concept of the social determinants of health (SDH), selected theories, and its application in studies of chronic disease. Once ignored or regarded only as distant or ...secondary influences on health and disease, social determinants have been increasingly acknowledged as fundamental causes of health afflictions. For the purposes of this discussion, SDH refers to SDH variables directly relevant to chronic diseases and, in some circumstances, obesity, in the research agenda of the Mid-South Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center for Health Disparities Research. The health effects of SDH are initially discussed with respect to smoking and the social gradient in mortality. Next, four leading SDH theories—life course, fundamental cause, social capital, and health lifestyle theory—are reviewed with supporting studies. The article concludes with an examination of neighborhood disadvantage, social networks, and perceived discrimination in SDH research.