Measurements of blood pressure in 52 064 men and women in the city of Bergen, Norway, who were 30 to 89 years in 1963, have been related to mortality occurring in different intervals of the follow-up ...period from 1963 throughout 1983. Blood pressure measurements obtained on one occasion were highly predictive of both coronary heart disease, stroke and all-cause mortality several years after measurements. The relative risk of stroke mortality associated with blood pressure varied little in the first ten to fifteen years, but the predictive power was clearly lower in the last five years of follow-up. The relative risk of death from coronary heart disease was stable in the whole period of follow-up. The risk curves relating coronary heart disease mortality to diastolic blood pressure in men and women aged 60-79 years at screening had the same shape in the first five years as in the rest of the follow-up. No J-shaped association was seen in either time interval.
This paper aims at i) providing effect estimates of a wide range of covariates and traditional policy means to increase the smoking cessation rate, ii) offering evidence on alternative interventions ...for health authorities, and iii) examining and comparing three groups of smokers with varying lengths of their smoking career (including one group that has smoked 25 years). All smokers have been subject to a three-wave cardiovascular screening and followed up over a maximum of 14 years. This rich panel data set has been merged with administrative registers. A flexible discrete-time duration model is used to examine the effect of 5 categories of explanatory variables: personal characteristics; indicators of addiction status; economic factors; health and health shock variables; governmental interventions. Most covariates differ across groups, but for all groups did the screening participation years stand out as important. Possible policy implications for future cessation interventions are discussed.
This paper aims at i) providing effect estimates of a wide range of covariates and traditional policy means to increase the smoking cessation rate, ii) offering evidence on alternative interventions ...for health authorities, and iii) examining and comparing three groups of smokers with varying lengths of their smoking career (including one group that has smoked 25 years). All smokers have been subject to a three-wave cardiovascular screening and followed up over a maximum of 14 years. This rich panel data set has been merged with administrative registers. A flexible discrete-time duration model is used to examine the effect of 5 categories of explanatory variables: personal characteristics; indicators of addiction status; economic factors; health and health shock variables; governmental interventions. Most covariates differ across groups, but for all groups did the screening participation years stand out as important. Possible policy implications for future cessation interventions are discussed.
To compare the predictions of the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) high- and low-risk functions applied to a recent population study with observed cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality ...estimated from annual official mortality statistics in Norway.
Data were obtained from large epidemiological surveys conducted in five Norwegian counties in 2000-2003.
A total of 32 251 men and women were investigated (aged 30-31, 40-41, 45-46, and 59-61). For men aged >or=59, more than 75% qualified for preventive treatment by having a 10-year risk >or=5%. Few women and practically no men younger than 46 years can be considered at high risk according to the SCORE risk prediction models. For men, the high-risk function overestimated and the low-risk model underestimated the CVD mortality as compared to the 10-year risks calculated from official mortality statistics (1999-2003). For women, however, both functions underestimated mortality in young individuals, whereas in the elderly an overestimation was observed.
The risk predictions depended strongly on age and gender. The SCORE high-risk function overestimates the risk of fatal CVD for men in Norway, and before implementation in clinical practice, proper adjustments to national levels are required.
PLoS Medicine Stocks Tanja 1977- , Umeå universitet, Urologi och andrologi; Manjer Jonas , Malmö University Hospital; Ulmer Hanno , Innsbruck Medical University ...
12/2009
Journal Article
Background
Prospective studies have indicated that elevated blood glucose levels may increase the risk of cancer, but the strength of the association is unclear. We examined the association between ...blood glucose and cancer risk in a prospective study of six European cohorts. Methods and Findings The Metabolic syndrome and Cancer project (Me-Can) includes cohorts from Norway, Austria, and Sweden; the current study included 274,126 men and 275,818 women. Mean age at baseline was 44.8 years and mean follow-up time was 10.4 years. Excluding the first year of follow-up, 18,621 men and 11,664 women were diagnosed with cancer, and 6,973 men and 3,088 women died of cancer. We used Cox regression models to calculate relative risk (RR) for glucose levels, and included adjustment for body mass index (BMI) and smoking status in the analyses. RRs were corrected for regression dilution ratio of glucose. RR (95% confidence interval) per 1 mmol/l increment of glucose for overall incident cancer was 1.05 (1.01-1.10) in men and 1.11 (1.05-1.16) in women, and corresponding RRs for fatal cancer were 1.15 (1.07-1.22) and 1.21 (1.11-1.33), respectively. Significant increases in risk among men were found for incident and fatal cancer of the liver, gallbladder and respiratory tract, for incident thyroid cancer and multiple myeloma, and for fatal rectal cancer. In women, significant associations were found for incident and fatal cancer of the pancreas, for incident urinary bladder cancer, and for fatal cancer of the uterine corpus, cervix uteri, and stomach.
Conclusions
Data from our study indicate that abnormal glucose metabolism, independently of BMI, is associated with an increased risk of cancer overall and at several cancer sites. Our data showed stronger associations among women than among men, and for fatal cancer compared to incident cancer.
Published
Background
Prospective studies have indicated that elevated blood glucose levels may increase the risk of cancer, but the strength of the association is unclear. We examined the association between blood glucose and cancer risk in a prospective study of six European cohorts. Methods and Findings The Metabolic syndrome and Cancer project (Me-Can) includes cohorts from Norway, Austria, and Sweden; the current study included 274,126 men and 275,818 women. Mean age at baseline was 44.8 years and mean follow-up time was 10.4 years. Excluding the first year of follow-up, 18,621 men and 11,664 women were diagnosed with cancer, and 6,973 men and 3,088 women died of cancer. We used Cox regression models to calculate relative risk (RR) for glucose levels, and included adjustment for body mass index (BMI) and smoking status in the analyses. RRs were corrected for regression dilution ratio of glucose. RR (95% confidence interval) per 1 mmol/l increment of glucose for overall incident cancer was 1.05 (1.01-1.10) in men and 1.11 (1.05-1.16) in women, and corresponding RRs for fatal cancer were 1.15 (1.07-1.22) and 1.21 (1.11-1.33), respectively. Significant increases in risk among men were found for incident and fatal cancer of the liver, gallbladder and respiratory tract, for incident thyroid cancer and multiple myeloma, and for fatal rectal cancer. In women, significant associations were found for incident and fatal cancer of the pancreas, for incident urinary bladder cancer, and for fatal cancer of the uterine corpus, cervix uteri, and stomach.
Conclusions
Data from our study indicate that abnormal glucose metabolism, independently of BMI, is associated with an increased risk of cancer overall and at several cancer sites. Our data showed stronger associations among women than among men, and for fatal cancer compared to incident cancer.
Published
This paper studies the influence of premarital cohabitation on marital fertility by applying life table methods to data for cohorts of Danish women born in 1926-1955, collected in retrospective ...interviews made in 1975. For each five-year cohort, the data have been analyzed by duration of marriage or by duration since previous birth, for women who had no reported births before marriage. Our main empirical results are: (a) that women who married at age 15-19 had higher rates of marital first and second births than those married at ages 20-24, and (b) that premarital cohabitation had very little influence on births of these two first orders in our data.
The prognosis of 64 patients with atrioventricular (AV) block among 128 consecutive patients, 65 males and 63 females, treated with permanent pacemakers, was compared with that of 56 patients with ...sick sinus syndrome (SSS) during a mean observation period of 32.5 months. A poor survival rate was found in patients with known coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to those with isolated conduction defect (ICD). Among patients with CHD, a higher mortality was found in patients with AV block than in those with SSS (58 vs. 24%). Likewise, among patients with ICD the mortality in AV block was higher than in SSS (31 vs. 15%). Regression analysis showed a mortality excess in AV block vs. SSS (p=0.02), males vs. females (p=0.04). The mortality excess in patients with CHD vs. ICD was significant (p=0.01). It is concluded that the increased mortality rate in patients with AV block is related to widespread myocardial damage, this being especially pronounced in patients with CHD.
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