Aims The aim of this study is to evaluate whether childhood risk factors are associated with a 6-year change in carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in young adulthood independent of the current risk ...factors. Methods and results The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns cohort consisted of 1809 subjects who were followed-up for 27 years since baseline (1980, age 3–18 years) and having carotid IMT measured both in 2001 and 2007. Cardiovascular risk factors were assessed repeatedly since childhood. A genotype risk score was calculated using 17 newly identified genetic variants associating with cardiovascular morbidity. The number of childhood risk factors (high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL-cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, smoking, low physical activity, infrequent fruit consumption) was associated with a 6-year change in adulthood IMT. In subjects with 0, 1, 2, and ≥3 childhood risk factors, IMT mean (95% CI)) increased by 35 (28–42), 46 (40–52), 49 (41–57), and 61 (49–73) µm (P = 0.0001). This association remained significant when adjusted for adulthood risk score and genotype score (P = 0.007). Of the individual childhood variables, infrequent fruit consumption ((β (95% CI) for 1-SD change −5(−9 to −1), P = 0.03) and low physical activity (−6(−10 to −2), P = 0.01) were associated with accelerated IMT progression after taking into account these variables assessed in adulthood. Conclusion These findings indicate that children with risk factors have increased atherosclerosis progression rate in adulthood, and support the idea that the prevention of atherosclerosis by means of life style could be effective when initiated in childhood.
Dietary patterns are useful in nutritional epidemiology, providing a comprehensive alternative to the traditional approach based on single nutrients. The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study is a ...prospective cohort study with a 21-year follow-up. At baseline, detailed quantitative information on subjects' food consumption was obtained using a 48 h dietary recall method (n 1768, aged 3-18 years). The interviews were repeated after 6 and 21 years (n 1200 and n 1037, respectively). We conducted a principal component analysis to identify major dietary patterns at each study point. A set of two similar patterns was recognised throughout the study. Pattern 1 was positively correlated with consumption of traditional Finnish foods, such as rye, potatoes, milk, butter, sausages and coffee, and negatively correlated with fruit, berries and dairy products other than milk. Pattern 1 type of diet was more common among male subjects, smokers and those living in rural areas. Pattern 2, predominant among female subjects, non-smokers and in urban areas, was characterised by more health-conscious food choices such as vegetables, legumes and nuts, tea, rye, cheese and other dairy products, and also by consumption of alcoholic beverages. Tracking of the pattern scores was observed, particularly among subjects who were adolescents at baseline. Of those originally belonging to the uppermost quintile of pattern 1 and 2 scores, 41 and 38 % respectively, persisted in the same quintile 21 years later. Our results suggest that food behaviour and concrete food choices are established already in childhood or adolescence and may significantly track into adulthood.
This Letter presents a Bluetooth antenna for metal-cased smart jewellery. The designed antenna is competent enough to operate in free space; moreover, antenna performance is investigated with cubical ...shape model which has the electrical properties similar to human body tissue. The measured prototype achieves 68% total efficiency in the free space and 27% total efficiency when measured with a cubical model in the Bluetooth frequency range of 2.4–2.48 GHz.
Objective: To assess nutrient intakes relevant in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) among young adults in Finland and to find past and present determinants of quality of diet. Design: ...Prospective study, 21 years of follow-up. Setting: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, Finland. Subjects: At baseline in 1980: 3569 children aged 3-18 y participated (83% of those invited), and every second of them (1780) were selected to the dietary study. At follow-ups in 1986 and 2001: 1200 and 1037 of the original sample, respectively, participated. Methods: Food consumption was assessed using 48-h dietary recall. Intakes in 2001 were compared with those obtained in 1980 and 1986. Nutrients selected for further examination were those implicated in the risk of CVD: saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and n-3 fatty acids, fibre and salt. An index describing the quality of adulthood diet was constructed. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify independent childhood and adulthood determinants of the quality index. Results: The average intakes showed substantial changes since 1980. Intakes of fat and saturated fat had decreased, while the consumption of vegetables and fruit had increased. However, a great disparity was present between the recommended levels and actual intakes for many of the nutrients, particularly salt, saturated fat and fibre. Intake of fat and consumption of vegetables in childhood and physical activity in adulthood were important health behavioural determinants of the cardiovascular quality of the adult diet. Socio-demographic factors, including education of the subject and their parents, had no significant associations with diet. Conclusions: While intakes of energy and nutrients have changed favourably in Finnish young adults between 1980 and 2001 with regard to the risk of CVD, they are still far from recommended levels. Childhood diet is a significant determinant of adult diet even after 21 y.
Background
Job strain has been associated with depressive symptoms, and depression has been associated with low bone mineral density (BMD).
Purpose
The associations between BMD and job strain have ...not been studied. We examined the relations between BMD, job strain, and depressive symptoms in a population-based group of young adults in Finland.
Method
Ultrasonic measurement of BMD at the calcaneus was performed on 777 participants (men 45 %, aged 30–45) drawn from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Job strain was assessed by self-administered questionnaires by the combination of job demands and job control. Depressive symptoms were assessed with a modified Beck Depression Inventory. The effects of job strain on BMD were studied with multivariable analyses with age, sex, BMI, vitamin D, and calcium intake, physical activity, cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and depressive symptoms as covariates.
Results
Depressive symptoms were independently associated with lower BMD T score in participants with high job strain (
β
= −0.241,
p
= 0.02), but depressive symptoms were not significantly associated with BMD in the low (
β
= −0.160,
p
= 0.26) and intermediate (
β
= −0.042,
p
= 0.66) job strain categories.
Conclusion
The results suggest that job strain modifies the association between depressive symptoms and BMD. Depressed individuals with high work-related stress might be in increased risk of lower bone mineral density.
More than half of the patients with angiographically confirmed premature coronary heart disease (CHD) have a familial lipoprotein disorder. Familial combined hyperlipidaemia (FCHL) represents the ...most common genetic dyslipidemia with a prevalence of 1.0-2.0%. FCHL is estimated to cause 10-20% of premature CHD and is characterized by elevated levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, or both. Attempts to characterize genes predisposing to FCHL have been hampered by its equivocal phenotype definition, unknown mode of inheritance and genetic heterogeneity. In order to minimize genetic heterogeneity, we chose 31 extended FCHL families from the isolated Finnish population that fulfilled strictly defined criteria for the phenotype status. We performed linkage analyses with markers from ten chromosomal regions that contain lipid-metabolism candidate genes. One marker, D1S104, adjacent to the apolipoprotein A-II (APOA2) gene on chromosome 1, revealed a lod score of Z = 3.50 assuming a dominant mode of inheritance. Multipoint analysis combining information from D1S104 and the neighbouring marker D1S1677 resulted in a lod score of 5.93. Physical positioning of known genes in the area (APOA2 and three selectin genes) outside the linked region suggests a novel locus for FCHL on 1q21-q23. A second paper in this issue (Castellani et al.) reports the identification of a mouse combined hyperlipidaemia locus in the syntenic region of the mouse genome, thus further implicating a gene in this region in the aetiology of FCHL.
Studies on the impact of single nutrients on the risk of CVD have often given inconclusive results. Recent research on dietary patterns has offered promising information on the effects of diet as a ...whole on the risk of CVD. The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study is an ongoing, prospective cohort study with a 21-year follow-up to date. The subjects were children and adolescents at baseline (3-18 years, n 1768) and adults at the latest follow-up study (24-39 years, n 1037). We investigated the associations between two major dietary patterns and several risk factors for CVD. In longitudinal analyses with repeated measurements, using multivariate mixed linear regression models, the traditional dietary pattern (characterised by high consumption of rye, potatoes, butter, sausages, milk and coffee) was independently associated with total and LDL cholesterol concentrations, apolipoprotein B and C-reactive protein concentrations among both genders, and also with systolic blood pressure and insulin levels among women and concentrations of homocysteine among men (P<0.05 for all). A dietary pattern reflecting more health-conscious food choices (such as high consumption of vegetables, legumes and nuts, tea, rye, cheese and other dairy products, and alcoholic beverages) was inversely, but less strongly associated with cardiovascular risk factors. Our results support earlier findings that dietary patterns have a role in the development of CVD.
Birth weight within the normal range is associated with a variety of adult-onset diseases, but the mechanisms behind these associations are poorly understood. Previous genome-wide association studies ...of birth weight identified a variant in the ADCY5 gene associated both with birth weight and type 2 diabetes and a second variant, near CCNL1, with no obvious link to adult traits. In an expanded genome-wide association meta-analysis and follow-up study of birth weight (of up to 69,308 individuals of European descent from 43 studies), we have now extended the number of loci associated at genome-wide significance to 7, accounting for a similar proportion of variance as maternal smoking. Five of the loci are known to be associated with other phenotypes: ADCY5 and CDKAL1 with type 2 diabetes, ADRB1 with adult blood pressure and HMGA2 and LCORL with adult height. Our findings highlight genetic links between fetal growth and postnatal growth and metabolism.
Almost 100 genetic loci are known to affect serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels. For many of these loci, the biological function and causal variants remain unknown. We performed an association ...analysis of the reported 95 lipid loci against 216 metabolite measures, including 95 measurements on lipids and lipoprotein subclasses, obtained via serum nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics and four enzymatic lipid traits in 8330 individuals from Finland. The genetic variation in the loci was investigated using a dense set of 440 807 directly genotyped and imputed variants around the previously identified lead single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). For 30 of the 95 loci, we identified new metabolic or genetic associations (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In the majority of the loci, the strongest association was to a more specific metabolite measure than the enzymatic lipids. In four loci, the smallest high-density lipoprotein measures showed effects opposite to the larger ones, and 14 loci had associations beyond the individual lipoprotein measures. In 27 loci, we identified SNPs with a stronger association than the previously reported markers and 12 loci harboured multiple, statistically independent variants. Our data show considerable diversity in association patterns between the loci originally identified through associations with enzymatic lipid measures and reveal association profiles of far greater detail than from routine clinical lipid measures. Additionally, a dense marker set and a homogeneous population allow for detailed characterization of the genetic association signals to a resolution exceeding that achieved so far. Further understanding of the rich variability in genetic effects on metabolites provides insights into the biological processes modifying lipid levels.
Background
Circulating cholesterol (C) and triglyceride (TG) levels are associated with vascular injury in type 1 diabetes (T1DM). Lipoproteins are responsible for transporting lipids, and ...alterations in their subclass distributions may partly explain the increased mortality in individuals with T1DM.
Design and subjects
A cohort of 3544 individuals with T1DM was recruited by the nationwide multicentre FinnDiane Study Group. At baseline, six very low‐density lipoprotein VLDL, one intermediate‐density lipoprotein IDL, three low‐density lipoprotein LDL and four higher high‐density lipoprotein HDL subclasses were quantified by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. At follow‐up, the baseline data were analysed for incident micro‐ or macroalbuminuria (117 cases in 5.3 years), progression from microalbuminuria (63 cases in 6.1 years), progression from macroalbuminuria (109 cases in 5.9 years) and mortality (385 deaths in 9.4 years). Univariate associations were tested by age‐matched cases and controls and multivariate lipoprotein profiles were analysed using the self‐organizing map (SOM).
Results
TG and C levels in large VLDL were associated with incident albuminuria, TG and C in medium VLDL were associated with progression from microalbuminuria, and TG and C in all VLDL subclasses were associated with mortality. Large HDL‐C was inversely associated with mortality. Three extreme phenotypes emerged from SOM analysis: (i) low C (<3% mortality), (ii) low TG/C ratio (6% mortality), and (iii) high TG/C ratio (40% mortality) in all subclasses.
Conclusions
TG–C imbalance is a general lipoprotein characteristic in individuals with T1DM and high vascular disease risk.
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