The contemporary associations of type 2 diabetes with a wide range of incident cardiovascular diseases have not been compared. We aimed to study associations between type 2 diabetes and 12 initial ...manifestations of cardiovascular disease.
We used linked primary care, hospital admission, disease registry, and death certificate records from the CALIBER programme, which links data for people in England recorded in four electronic health data sources. We included people who were (or turned) 30 years or older between Jan 1, 1998, to March 25, 2010, who were free from cardiovascular disease at baseline. The primary endpoint was the first record of one of 12 cardiovascular presentations in any of the data sources. We compared cumulative incidence curves for the initial presentation of cardiovascular disease and used Cox models to estimate cause-specific hazard ratios (HRs). This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01804439).
Our cohort consisted of 1 921 260 individuals, of whom 1 887 062 (98·2%) did not have diabetes and 34 198 (1·8%) had type 2 diabetes. We observed 113 638 first presentations of cardiovascular disease during a median follow-up of 5·5 years (IQR 2·1–10·1). Of people with type 2 diabetes, 6137 (17·9%) had a first cardiovascular presentation, the most common of which were peripheral arterial disease (reported in 992 16·2% of 6137 patients) and heart failure (866 14·1% of 6137 patients). Type 2 diabetes was positively associated with peripheral arterial disease (adjusted HR 2·98 95% CI 2·76–3·22), ischaemic stroke (1·72 1·52–1·95), stable angina (1·62 1·49–1·77), heart failure (1·56 1·45–1·69), and non-fatal myocardial infarction (1·54 1·42–1·67), but was inversely associated with abdominal aortic aneurysm (0·46 0·35–0·59) and subarachnoid haemorrhage (0·48 0·26–0.89), and not associated with arrhythmia or sudden cardiac death (0·95 0·76–1·19).
Heart failure and peripheral arterial disease are the most common initial manifestations of cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetes. The differences between relative risks of different cardiovascular diseases in patients with type 2 diabetes have implications for clinical risk assessment and trial design.
Wellcome Trust, National Institute for Health Research, and Medical Research Council.
OBJECTIVE:To implement a mendelian randomization (MR) approach to determine whether type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and body mass index (BMI) are causally associated ...with specific ischemic stroke subtypes.
METHODS:MR estimates of the association between each possible risk factor and ischemic stroke subtypes were calculated with inverse-variance weighted (conventional) and weighted median approaches, and MR-Egger regression was used to explore pleiotropy. The number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) used as instrumental variables was 49 for T2D, 36 for fasting glucose, 18 for fasting insulin, and 77 for BMI. Genome-wide association study data of SNP-stroke associations were derived from METASTROKE and the Stroke Genetics Network (n = 18,476 ischemic stroke cases and 37,296 controls).
RESULTS:Conventional MR analysis showed associations between genetically predicted T2D and large artery stroke (odds ratio OR 1.28, 95% confidence interval CI 1.16–1.40, p = 3.3 × 10) and small vessel stroke (OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.10–1.33, p = 8.9 × 10) but not cardioembolic stroke (OR 1.06, 95% CI 0.97–1.15, p = 0.17). The association of T2D with large artery stroke but not small vessel stroke was consistent in a sensitivity analysis using the weighted median method, and there was no evidence of pleiotropy. Genetically predicted fasting glucose and fasting insulin levels and BMI were not statistically significantly associated with any ischemic stroke subtype.
CONCLUSIONS:This study provides support that T2D may be causally associated with large artery stroke.
Abstract
Background
Few pediatric cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported and we know little about the epidemiology in children, although more is known about other ...coronaviruses. We aimed to understand the infection rate, clinical presentation, clinical outcomes, and transmission dynamics for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in order to inform clinical and public health measures.
Methods
We undertook a rapid systematic review and narrative synthesis of all literature relating to SARS-CoV-2 in pediatric populations. The search terms also included SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. We searched 3 databases and the COVID-19 resource centers of 11 major journals and publishers. English abstracts of Chinese-language papers were included. Data were extracted and narrative syntheses conducted.
Results
Twenty-four studies relating to COVID-19 were included in the review. Children appear to be less affected by COVID-19 than adults by observed rate of cases in large epidemiological studies. Limited data on attack rate indicate that children are just as susceptible to infection. Data on clinical outcomes are scarce but include several reports of asymptomatic infection and a milder course of disease in young children, although radiological abnormalities are noted. Severe cases are not reported in detail and there are few data relating to transmission.
Conclusions
Children appear to have a low observed case rate of COVID-19 but may have rates similar to adults of infection with SARS-CoV-2. This discrepancy may be because children are asymptomatic or too mildly infected to draw medical attention and be tested and counted in observed cases of COVID-19.
Initial reports from China observed low rates of COVID-19 in children compared with adults. Emerging evidence suggests that children may be infected at the same rate as adults but are more likely to experience asymptomatic or mild disease.
Metabolic processes can influence disease risk and provide therapeutic targets. By conducting genome-wide association studies of 1,091 blood metabolites and 309 metabolite ratios, we identified ...associations with 690 metabolites at 248 loci and associations with 143 metabolite ratios at 69 loci. Integrating metabolite-gene and gene expression information identified 94 effector genes for 109 metabolites and 48 metabolite ratios. Using Mendelian randomization (MR), we identified 22 metabolites and 20 metabolite ratios having estimated causal effect on 12 traits and diseases, including orotate for estimated bone mineral density, α-hydroxyisovalerate for body mass index and ergothioneine for inflammatory bowel disease and asthma. We further measured the orotate level in a separate cohort and demonstrated that, consistent with MR, orotate levels were positively associated with incident hip fractures. This study provides a valuable resource describing the genetic architecture of metabolites and delivers insights into their roles in common diseases, thereby offering opportunities for therapeutic targets.
To identify circulating proteins influencing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) susceptibility and severity, we undertook a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study, rapidly scanning hundreds ...of circulating proteins while reducing bias due to reverse causation and confounding. In up to 14,134 cases and 1.2 million controls, we found that an s.d. increase in OAS1 levels was associated with reduced COVID-19 death or ventilation (odds ratio (OR) = 0.54, P = 7 × 10
), hospitalization (OR = 0.61, P = 8 × 10
) and susceptibility (OR = 0.78, P = 8 × 10
). Measuring OAS1 levels in 504 individuals, we found that higher plasma OAS1 levels in a non-infectious state were associated with reduced COVID-19 susceptibility and severity. Further analyses suggested that a Neanderthal isoform of OAS1 in individuals of European ancestry affords this protection. Thus, evidence from MR and a case-control study support a protective role for OAS1 in COVID-19 adverse outcomes. Available pharmacological agents that increase OAS1 levels could be prioritized for drug development.
Proteins are effector molecules that mediate the functions of genes
and modulate comorbidities
, behaviors and drug treatments
. They represent an enormous potential resource for personalized, ...systemic and data-driven diagnosis, prevention, monitoring and treatment. However, the concept of using plasma proteins for individualized health assessment across many health conditions simultaneously has not been tested. Here, we show that plasma protein expression patterns strongly encode for multiple different health states, future disease risks and lifestyle behaviors. We developed and validated protein-phenotype models for 11 different health indicators: liver fat, kidney filtration, percentage body fat, visceral fat mass, lean body mass, cardiopulmonary fitness, physical activity, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, diabetes risk and primary cardiovascular event risk. The analyses were prospectively planned, documented and executed at scale on archived samples and clinical data, with a total of ~85 million protein measurements in 16,894 participants. Our proof-of-concept study demonstrates that protein expression patterns reliably encode for many different health issues, and that large-scale protein scanning
coupled with machine learning is viable for the development and future simultaneous delivery of multiple measures of health. We anticipate that, with further validation and the addition of more protein-phenotype models, this approach could enable a single-source, individualized so-called liquid health check.
Multimorbidity, the simultaneous presence of multiple chronic conditions, is an increasing global health problem and research into its determinants is of high priority. We used baseline untargeted ...plasma metabolomics profiling covering >1,000 metabolites as a comprehensive readout of human physiology to characterize pathways associated with and across 27 incident noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) assessed using electronic health record hospitalization and cancer registry data from over 11,000 participants (219,415 person years). We identified 420 metabolites shared between at least 2 NCDs, representing 65.5% of all 640 significant metabolite-disease associations. We integrated baseline data on over 50 diverse clinical risk factors and characteristics to identify actionable shared pathways represented by those metabolites. Our study highlights liver and kidney function, lipid and glucose metabolism, low-grade inflammation, surrogates of gut microbial diversity and specific health-related behaviors as antecedents of common NCD multimorbidity with potential for early prevention. We integrated results into an open-access webserver ( https://omicscience.org/apps/mwasdisease/ ) to facilitate future research and meta-analyses.
Testosterone supplementation is commonly used for its effects on sexual function, bone health and body composition, yet its effects on disease outcomes are unknown. To better understand this, we ...identified genetic determinants of testosterone levels and related sex hormone traits in 425,097 UK Biobank study participants. Using 2,571 genome-wide significant associations, we demonstrate that the genetic determinants of testosterone levels are substantially different between sexes and that genetically higher testosterone is harmful for metabolic diseases in women but beneficial in men. For example, a genetically determined 1 s.d. higher testosterone increases the risks of type 2 diabetes (odds ratio (OR) = 1.37 (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.22-1.53)) and polycystic ovary syndrome (OR = 1.51 (95% CI: 1.33-1.72)) in women, but reduces type 2 diabetes risk in men (OR = 0.86 (95% CI: 0.76-0.98)). We also show adverse effects of higher testosterone on breast and endometrial cancers in women and prostate cancer in men. Our findings provide insights into the disease impacts of testosterone and highlight the importance of sex-specific genetic analyses.
Characterization of the genetic regulation of proteins is essential for understanding disease etiology and developing therapies. We identified 10,674 genetic associations for 3892 plasma proteins to ...create a cis-anchored gene-protein-disease map of 1859 connections that highlights strong cross-disease biological convergence. This proteo-genomic map provides a framework to connect etiologically related diseases, to provide biological context for new or emerging disorders, and to integrate different biological domains to establish mechanisms for known gene-disease links. Our results identify proteo-genomic connections within and between diseases and establish the value of cis-protein variants for annotation of likely causal disease genes at loci identified in genome-wide association studies, thereby addressing a major barrier to experimental validation and clinical translation of genetic discoveries.
Affinity-based proteomics has enabled scalable quantification of thousands of protein targets in blood enhancing biomarker discovery, understanding of disease mechanisms, and genetic evaluation of ...drug targets in humans through protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs). Here, we integrate two partly complementary techniques-the aptamer-based SomaScan
v4 assay and the antibody-based Olink assays-to systematically assess phenotypic consequences of hundreds of pQTLs discovered for 871 protein targets across both platforms. We create a genetically anchored cross-platform proteome-phenome network comprising 547 protein-phenotype connections, 36.3% of which were only seen with one of the two platforms suggesting that both techniques capture distinct aspects of protein biology. We further highlight discordance of genetically predicted effect directions between assays, such as for PILRA and Alzheimer's disease. Our results showcase the synergistic nature of these technologies to better understand and identify disease mechanisms and provide a benchmark for future cross-platform discoveries.