- Body mass index and cancer risk among adults with and without cardiometabolic diseases: evidence from the EPIC and UK Biobank prospective cohort studies – BMC Medicine BMC Medicine
- Obesity linked to prostate cancer risk: New study uncovers inherited dangers from fathers News-Medical.Net
- People with excess weight, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases are at higher risk of cancer IARC
- Gaining Weight Linked To Rise In Cancer Risk Extra.ie
- New study reveals increased cancer risk linked to higher BMI in adults with cardiovascular diseases News-Medical.Net
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Tag Archives: Studies
New ways to treat bladder cancer improve survival and shake up the standard of care, new studies show – CNN
- New ways to treat bladder cancer improve survival and shake up the standard of care, new studies show CNN
- Merck, BMS Score Separate Late-Stage Victories in Bladder Cancer at ESMO BioSpace
- Seagen, Astellas post Phase 3 win for bladder cancer therapy (NASDAQ:SGEN) Seeking Alpha
- Frontline Enfortumab Vedotin Plus Pembrolizumab Elicits OS Improvement in Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma OncLive
- Groundbreaking EV-302 Trial Significantly Extends Overall Survival and Progression-Free Survival in Patients Treated with PADCEV® (enfortumab vedotin-ejfv) and KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab) in First-Line Advanced Bladder Cancer BioSpace
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Little Rock Nine survivors call removal of AP African American Studies “an attempt to erase history” – MSNBC
- Little Rock Nine survivors call removal of AP African American Studies “an attempt to erase history” MSNBC
- Arkansas Department of Education throws down gauntlet on CRT, demands public schools turn over materials Fox News
- Historic ‘Little Rock Nine’ school pushes back on Arkansas law limiting race studies MSNBC
- Arkansas Education Secretary sends letter to 5 school districts concerning AP African American Studies KARK
- Perspective | Five of Little Rock Nine on Arkansas’ attempt to erase Black history The Washington Post
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They integrated Little Rock’s schools — now they’re slamming restrictions on AP African American Studies – NBC News
- They integrated Little Rock’s schools — now they’re slamming restrictions on AP African American Studies NBC News
- Arkansas schools will teach AP African American Studies despite state’s objections USA TODAY
- Little Rock schools will allow African American class to count for graduation, in break from Arkansas state officials CNN
- Little Rock Nine criticize Arkansas’s AP African American Studies course restrictions The Hill
- Six Arkansas schools to offer African American AP course despite restrictions The Guardian US
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Ultra-Processed Food May Exacerbate Cognitive Decline, New Studies Show : ScienceAlert
Scientists have known for years that unhealthy diets – particularly those that are high in fat and sugar – may cause detrimental changes to the brain and lead to cognitive impairment.
Many factors that contribute to cognitive decline are out of a person’s control, such as genetics and socioeconomic factors. But ongoing research increasingly indicates that a poor diet is a risk factor for memory impairments during normal aging and increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
But when evaluating how some diets may erode brain health as we age, research on the effects of consuming minimally processed versus ultra-processed foods has been scant – that is, until now.
Two recent large-scale studies suggest that eating ultra-processed foods may exacerbate age-related cognitive decline and increase the risk of developing dementia. In contrast, another recent study reported that ultra-processed food consumption was not associated with worse cognition in people over 60.
Although more research is needed, as a neuroscientist who researches how diet can influence cognition later in life, I find that these early studies add a new layer for considering how fundamental nutrition is to brain health.
Lots of ingredients, minimal nutrition
Ultra-processed foods tend to be lower in nutrients and fiber and higher in sugar, fat, and salt compared to unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
Some examples of ultra-processed foods include soda, packaged cookies, chips, frozen meals, flavored nuts, flavored yogurt, distilled alcoholic beverages, and fast foods. Even packaged breads, including those high in nutritious whole grains, qualify as ultra-processed in many cases because of the additives and preservatives they contain.
Another way to look at it: You are not likely to find the ingredients that make up most of these foods in your home kitchen.
But don’t confuse ultra-processed with processed foods, which still retain most of their natural characteristics, although they’ve undergone some form of processing – like canned vegetables, dried pasta, or frozen fruit.
Parsing the research
In a December 2022 study, researchers compared the rate of cognitive decline over approximately eight years between groups of people that consumed different amounts of ultra-processed foods.
At the beginning of the study, over 10,000 participants living in Brazil reported their dietary habits from the previous 12 months. Then, for the ensuing years, the researchers evaluated the cognitive performance of the participants with standard tests of memory and executive function.
Those who ate a diet containing more ultra-processed foods at the start of the study showed slightly more cognitive decline compared with those that ate little to no ultra-processed foods. This was a relatively modest difference in the rate of cognitive decline between experimental groups.
It is not yet clear if the small difference in cognitive decline associated with higher consumption of ultra-processed foods will have a meaningful effect at the level of an individual person.
The second study, with about 72,000 participants in the U.K., measured the association between eating ultra-processed foods and dementia. For the group eating the highest amounts of ultra-processed foods, approximately 1 out of 120 people were diagnosed with dementia over a 10-year period. For the group that consumed little to no ultra-processed foods, this number was 1 out of 170.
Research examining the relationship between health and ultra-processed foods uses the NOVA classification, which is a categorization system based on the type and extent of industrial food processing.
Some nutritionists have criticized the NOVA classification for not having clear definitions of food processing, which could lead to misclassification. They also argue that the potential health risks from consuming ultra-processed foods could be explained by low levels of fiber and nutrients and high levels of fat, sugar, and salt in the diet rather than the amount of processing.
Many ultra-processed foods are high in additives, preservatives, or coloring agents, while also having other features of an unhealthy diet, such as being low in fiber and nutrients. Thus, it is unclear if eating food that has undergone more processing has an additional negative impact on health beyond low diet quality.
For example, you could eat a burger and fries from a fast food chain, which would be high in fat, sugar, and salt as well as being ultra-processed. You could make that same meal at home, which could also be high in fat, sugar, and salt but would not be ultra-processed. More research is needed to determine whether one is worse than the other.
Brain-healthy diets
Even when the processes that lead to dementia are not occurring, the aging brain undergoes biochemical and structural changes that are associated with worsening cognition.
But for adults over the age of 55, a healthier diet could increase the likelihood of maintaining better brain function. In particular, the Mediterranean diet and ketogenic diet are associated with better cognition in advanced age.
The Mediterranean diet emphasizes the consumption of plant-based foods and healthy fats, like olive oil, seeds, and nuts. The ketogenic diet is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, with the primary fiber source being from vegetables. Both diets minimize or eliminate the consumption of sugar.
Our research and the work of others show that both diets can reverse some of these changes and improve cognitive function – possibly by reducing harmful inflammation.
Although inflammation is a normal immune response to injury or infection, chronic inflammation can be detrimental to the brain. Studies have shown that excess sugar and fat can contribute to chronic inflammation, and ultra-processed foods might also exacerbate harmful inflammation.
Another way that diet and ultra-processed foods may influence brain health is through the gut-brain axis, which is the communication that occurs between the brain and the gut microbiome, or the community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tract.
Not only does the gut microbiome help with digestion, but it also influences the immune system, while producing hormones and neurotransmitters that are critical for brain function.
Studies have shown that the ketogenic and Mediterranean diets change the composition of microorganisms in the gut in ways that benefit the person. Ultra-processed food consumption is also associated with alterations in the type and abundance of gut microorganisms that have more harmful effects.
The uncertainties
Disentangling the specific effects of individual foods on the human body is difficult, in part because maintaining strict control over people’s diets to study them over long periods of time is problematic. Moreover, randomized controlled trials, the most reliable type of study for establishing causality, are expensive to carry out.
So far, most nutritional studies, including these two, have only shown correlations between ultra-processed food consumption and health. But they cannot rule out other lifestyle factors such as exercise, education, socioeconomic status, social connections, stress, and many more variables that may influence cognitive function.
This is where lab-based studies using animals are incredibly useful. Rats show cognitive decline in old age that parallels humans. It’s easy to control rodent diets and activity levels in a laboratory. And rats go from middle to old age within months, which shortens study times.
Lab-based studies in animals will make it possible to determine if ultra-processed foods are playing a key role in the development of cognitive impairments and dementia in people. As the world’s population ages and the number of older adults with dementia increases, this knowledge cannot come soon enough.
Sara N. Burke, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Cognitive Aging, University of Florida
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Backlash grows against DeSantis decision to block AP African American Studies class
The state Department of Education contends that the class is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law.” A new education law championed by DeSantis requires lessons on race be taught in “an objective matter” and “not used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.” Some education advocates and teachers say the law is so broadly framed that it is having a chilling effect on the teaching of Black history.
“If he does not negotiate with the College Board to allow AP African American Studies to be taught in classrooms across the state of Florida, these three young people will be the lead plaintiffs in a historic lawsuit,” Crump said before he introduced the students.
Crump has been involved in several high-profile civil rights cases involving Black Americans and vowed that DeSantis “cannot exterminate our culture.”
The latest controversy in Florida education policies began this month, when the DeSantis administration said a pilot Advanced Placement course on Black history would not be approved by the state Department of Education because it violated state law and “lacks educational value.”
The state Education Department listed “concerns” in the curriculum, including topics covering “Intersectionality and Activism,” “Black Feminist Literary Theory” and “Black Queer Studies.”
“Now who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory?” DeSantis said at a news conference this week. “That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids.”
But critics of the governor, who has made eliminating what he calls “woke indoctrination” from schools and businesses a key part of his platform, say he is unfairly targeting Black history by not allowing the course to be taught in Florida. Other Advanced Placement classes, such as European history, have not been scrutinized by the DeSantis administration.
The College Board said in a news release Tuesday that the “official framework” of the course will be released Feb. 1, replacing the pilot program and incorporating feedback from high schools and colleges. It does not mention input from public officials.
A College Board spokesman declined to comment on whether the curriculum was being adjusted in light of the DeSantis administration’s concerns. AP classes take two to six years to develop, according to the board, and “are regularly reviewed thereafter.”
Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement that the administration is “encouraged to see the College Board express a willingness to amend.” He added that the state will reconsider approving the class after examining the new curriculum.
“We look forward to reviewing the College Board’s changes and expect the removal of content on Critical Race Theory, Black Queer Studies, Intersectionality, and other topics that violate our law,” Lanfranconi said.
Meanwhile, dozens gathered at a “Stop the Black Attack” rally in Tallahassee organized by Equal Ground, a voting rights advocacy group. Several speakers accused DeSantis of trying to further marginalize the state’s Black community during his time in office. State Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) said DeSantis should be addressing issues such as “crumbling schools, dilapidated buildings in our communities” and high property insurance costs.
“These are the issues that‘s being ignored because we have to deal with the promotion of Jim Crow 3.0 by people who don’t know and don’t care about what’s happening in Black communities, but they desire to referee how you teach our history,” Jones said.
DeSantis has said he wants students to learn Black history — and by law, they are required to — but accused teachers of indoctrinating students to believe a “woke ideology.”
Leaders with the state legislature’s Black caucus are planning to engage with national civil rights organizations to put together additional educational opportunities around Black history so that students “will not have to wait on a state or governor to see the value in their history,” the lawmakers said in a statement this week.
State Rep. Michele Rayner (D) said that DeSantis is on a political “witch hunt” and violating Florida students’ freedom to learn — and that students are aware.
“They know that the erasure of history is not a secret,” Rayner said. “There are 2.8 million students sitting in Florida public schools right now knowing that their governor does not want them to learn about Black history.”
Ron DeSantis administration rejects proposed AP African American Studies class in Florida high schools
CNN
—
The administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is blocking a new Advanced Placement course for high school students on African American studies.
In a January 12 letter to the College Board, the nonprofit organization that oversees AP coursework, the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation said the course is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
“In the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion,” the letter stated.
While the letter did not elaborate on what the agency found objectionable in the course content, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said in a statement to CNN that the course “leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow.”
“As the Department of Education has previously stated, if the College Board amends the course to comply, provides a full course curriculum, and incorporates historically accurate content, then the Department will reconsider the course for approval,” Griffin added.
In a statement to CNN, the College Board declined to directly address the decision in Florida but said, “We look forward to bringing this rich and inspiring exploration of African-American history and culture to students across the country.”
The rejection of an Advanced Placement African American Studies course follows efforts by DeSantis to overhaul Florida’s educational curriculum to limit teaching about critical race theory. In 2021, the state enacted a law that banned teaching the concept, which explores the history of systemic racism in the United States and its continued impacts. The law also banned material from The 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project by The New York Times to reframe American history around the arrival of slave ships on American shores. Last year, DeSantis also signed a bill restricting how schools can talk about race with students.
The College Board unveiled plans to offer an African American studies class for the first time last year. The course is being offered as a pilot in 60 schools across the country during the 2022-23 school year, with the goal of making the course available to all schools in the 2024-25 school year. The first AP African American Studies exam would be administered in the Spring of 2025, according to the College Board website.
Griffin shared an apparent syllabus for the class with CNN but did not identify which portions the state found problematic. The 81-page document, labeled a “preview” from February 2022, provided a course framework covering “key topics that extend from the medieval kingdoms of West Africa to the ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary movement.”
It was not immediately clear if Florida had any schools currently participating in the pilot program. The College Board said the Advanced Placement Program has been working with higher education institutions to develop an African American Studies program for a decade.
“Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multi-year pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers,” the statement said. “The process of piloting and revising course frameworks is a standard part of any new AP course, and frameworks often change significantly as a result. We will publicly release the updated course framework when it is completed and well before this class is widely available in American high schools.”
In a Twitter post Wednesday, Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is Black, noted that Florida offers other cultural AP courses.
“This political extremism and its attack of Black History and Black people, is going to create an entire generation of Black children who won’t be able to see themselves reflected at all within their own education or in their own state,” Jones said.
DeSantis’ move comes as his standing among conservatives has soared nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural issues and against public health officials and bureaucrats during the Covid-19 pandemic. He is said to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid.
A group of Republican state legislators in Michigan seeking to draft him for the 2024 contest signed on to a letter that was hand-delivered to the Florida governor last month, asking that he “seek the presidential nomination of our Republican Party.”
The letter was signed by 18 GOP members of the Michigan Senate and House, who wrote that DeSantis is “uniquely and exceptionally qualified to provide the leadership and competence that is, unfortunately, missing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” In closing, they said they “stand ready and willing to help you win Michigan in 2024.”
Details of the letter were first reported by Politico.
This story has been updated with additional details.
Association of social isolation and loneliness with risk of incident hospital-treated infections: an analysis of data from the UK Biobank and Finnish Health and Social Support studies
Study design and population
We assessed the association of loneliness and social isolation with hospital-treated infectious diseases using data from the prospective UK Biobank cohort study,
15
- Sudlow C
- Gallacher J
- Allen N
- et al.
UK Biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age.
and replicated this analysis using data from an independent cohort, the nationwide population-based Finnish Health and Social Support (HeSSup) study.
16
- Korkeila K
- Suominen S
- Ahvenainen J
- et al.
Non-response and related factors in a nation-wide health survey.
Baseline data for the UK Biobank were collected between 2006 and 2010 in 22 research assessment centres across the UK. We included participants aged 38–73 years, who were linked to national health registries, had no history of hospital-treated infections at or before baseline, and had complete data on loneliness or social isolation. The HeSSup study comprised a random sample of individuals in Finland aged 20–54 years.
16
- Korkeila K
- Suominen S
- Ahvenainen J
- et al.
Non-response and related factors in a nation-wide health survey.
We included individuals from the HeSSup study with available data on loneliness or social isolation who were linked to national health registries. The HeSSup study included repeated assessments of loneliness and social isolation (in 1998 and 2003), which allowed evaluation of reverse causality. We excluded participants with missing data on hospital-treated infections, loneliness, and social isolation from both cohorts. The outcome of interest was defined as hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of infection, ascertained via linkage to electronic health records.
All participants provided written informed consent for the baseline assessments and for registry linkage. The UK Biobank was approved by the National Health Service National Research Ethics Service (11/NW/0382), and the HeSSup study by the ethics committee of Turku University Central Hospital and the Finnish Population Register Centre (VRK 2605/410/14).
Procedures
In the UK Biobank, loneliness was assessed by asking two questions: “Do you often feel lonely?” (no, 0; yes, 1) and “How often are you able to confide in someone close to you?” (0, almost daily–once every few months; 1, never or almost never). We defined a person as lonely only if they responded positively to both questions. In the sensitivity analysis, we used a single-item measure (“Do you often feel lonely?” Yes or no) to measure loneliness, as such single-item measures are highly correlated with the UCLA loneliness scale, the most commonly used multi-item measure of loneliness in population surveys.
17
- Hughes ME
- Waite LJ
- Hawkley LC
- Cacioppo JT
A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys: results from two population-based studies.
In the UK Biobank, social isolation was assessed by asking three questions:
15
- Sudlow C
- Gallacher J
- Allen N
- et al.
UK Biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age.
(1) “Including yourself, how many people live in your household? Include those who usually live in the house such as students living away from home during term time, and partners in the armed forces or in professions such as pilots” (1 point for living alone); (2) “How often do you visit friends or family or have them visit you?” (1 point for less than one friend or family visit per month); and (3) “Which of the following (leisure or social activities) do you engage in once a week or more often? You may select more than one” (1 point for not participating in any social activities at least weekly). The sum of the responses to these three questions resulted in a scale ranging from 0 to 3. We classified respondents with 2 or 3 points as socially isolated. The loneliness and social isolation measures were dichotomised with no weighting of responses.
In the HeSSup study, we constructed binary variables of loneliness and social isolation measures to make the measures and distributions as comparable as possible with those in the UK Biobank. Loneliness was assessed by asking “Do you currently feel lonely?” (Yes, very much so; yes, to some extent; no). We dichotomised responses to this question into yes versus no. The social isolation measure included four items of the longer Social Support Questionnaire, reflecting different ways of receiving support.
18
- Sarason IG
- Sarason BR
- Potter EH
- Antoni MH
Life events, social support, and illness.
The respondents could choose one or more of six alternatives (husband, wife, or partner; some other relative; close friend; close co-worker; close neighbour; or someone else close). The responses to the items were combined so that each source of support contributed one point to the final social support score (range 0–20).
18
- Sarason IG
- Sarason BR
- Potter EH
- Antoni MH
Life events, social support, and illness.
We used dichotomised scores in our analyses (0–6, socially isolated; 7–20, not isolated). Additional references and a description of validity issues are provided in the appendix (p 2).
Data regarding sex were acquired from central registry at recruitment, but in some cases were updated by the participant (categories were male and female). We selected baseline covariates based on factors used in previous studies in the field (appendix p 2), including demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and ethnicity, which can act as confounders, and other factors that can act as confounders, mediators, or both (appendix p 3). In the UK Biobank, baseline covariates (self-reported unless otherwise specified, as in the HeSSup study) were sex, age, ethnicity (White or non-White), education (low [no secondary education], intermediate [secondary education], or high [university degree]), the Townsend deprivation index (a continuous measure of neighbourhood deprivation), chronic diseases (self-reported long-standing illness without any specific diagnosis), current smoking (yes or no), physical activity (moderate and vigorous physical activity five or more times a week vs other), frequency of alcohol intake (three or four times a week or more vs once or twice a week or less), BMI (kg/m2), depressed mood in the past 2 weeks (Patient Health Questionnaire classified as low [not at all, several days] and high [more than half of my days, nearly every day]), and C-reactive protein (mg/L). Using linked electronic health records, we assessed physical conditions that, according to the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (2017), increase the risk of infectious diseases (a list of conditions with International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision [ICD-10] codes is provided in the appendix p 2).
In the HeSSup cohort, all covariates were self-reported and included age, sex (categories male and female), education (low [no occupational education], intermediate [vocational education], or high [university education]), current smoking (yes or no), alcohol consumption (none or moderate [1 to 21 units], or heavy [>21 units per week]), BMI (kg/m2), and depressed mood (moderate depression based on Beck Depression Inventory [score >18]). Physical activity was assessed as Metabolic Equivalent of Tasks
19
- Eisenberger NI
- Moieni M
- Inagaki TK
- Muscatell KA
- Irwin MR
In sickness and in health: the co-regulation of inflammation and social behavior.
(METs) and was dichotomised on the basis of median split (high, 3·6 or more; low, <3·6 METs; this produced a broadly similar distribution to that in the UK Biobank study and a threshold close to that recommended previously).
20
- Mendes MA
- da Silva I
- Ramires V
- et al.
Metabolic equivalent of task (METs) thresholds as an indicator of physical activity intensity.
The UK Biobank participants were linked to the Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care (England), the Scottish Morbidity Records General/Acute Inpatient and Day Case Admissions (Scotland), and the Patient Episode Database (Wales) until Feb 7, 2018. HeSSup participants were linked to the Finnish National Registry for Hospitalisations until Dec 31, 2012. In both studies, we retrieved primary diagnoses of infectious diseases from inpatient hospital discharge information using ICD-10 codes.
21
- Sipila PN
- Heikkila N
- Lindbohm JV
- et al.
Hospital-treated infectious diseases and the risk of dementia: a large, multicohort, observational study with a replication cohort.
We classified hospital-treated infectious diseases according to 925 ICD-10 codes (appendix pp 5–9). For comparison, we examined the associations of loneliness and social isolation with other broad disease categories including cancers; diseases of the endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, genitourinary, and nervous systems; diseases of the blood, eye, ear, and skin; and mental and behavioural disorders.
Statistical analysis
On the basis of a log-rank test and assuming a 5% confidence level and a statistical power of 80%, the minimum sample size for the detection of a small relative risk of 1·1 was 15 055 for loneliness and 14 925 for social isolation. After we assessed the proportional hazards assumption (appendix pp 9–10), we used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs separately for the associations of loneliness and social isolation with the first hospital-treated infection episode. Participants with a hospital-treated infection at or before baseline were excluded before the analysis. Follow-up was from study entry until the first hospital episode due to infection, death, or end of follow-up, whichever came first (no data were available on migration). These analyses applied to both the UK Biobank and HeSSup studies (HeSSup data did not include information on ethnicity, area deprivation, or C-reactive protein).
We examined the associations of loneliness and social isolation with hospital-treated infectious diseases separately in the following steps. First, the associations were tested in the UK BioBank cohort by adjusting HRs and 95% CIs for age, sex, and ethnicity. To examine whether the associations were observable in subgroups, we conducted analyses stratified by sex, age, education, C-reactive protein, long-term disease status, and depressed mood at baseline. These variables were selected because they are potential effect modifiers and were used in stratified analyses in previous UK Biobank studies on loneliness.
8
- Elovainio M
- Hakulinen C
- Pulkki-Raback L
- et al.
Contribution of risk factors to excess mortality in isolated and lonely individuals: an analysis of data from the UK Biobank cohort study.
,
22
- Elovainio M
- Lahti J
- Pirinen M
- et al.
Association of social isolation, loneliness and genetic risk with incidence of dementia: UK Biobank cohort study.
The interaction effect was tested by adding interaction terms into each model.
Second, we performed stepwise multivariable analyses in the UK BioBank cohort to test the extent to which the associations were independent of baseline covariates, and whether the multivariable-adjusted results were replicable in the first 3 years of follow-up and from year 3 onwards. All models included loneliness or social isolation as the exposure and covariates were added as follows. Model 1 included age and sex. In addition to age and sex, other models included ethnicity (Model 2); education and the Townsend deprivation index (Model 3); smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and BMI (Model 4); long-term illness (Model 5); C-reactive protein (Model 6); depressed mood (Model 7); and all the aforementioned covariates (Model 8). Given that the covariates can act as both as confounders and mediators, we interpreted the results cautiously and considered the association between loneliness or social isolation and infectious diseases independent of other factors only if the association remained significant after adjustment for the covariates. We calculated the percentage of excess risk attributable to covariates (PERM) for the associations of social isolation and loneliness with infections using the following formula:
PERM% = ([HR(age and sex) – HR(age, sex, and covariates adjusted)]/[HR(age and sex adjusted) – 1]) × 100.
Third, in sensitivity analyses of the UK BioBank cohort, we tested whether the associations were robust to the exclusion of participants with physical conditions that increase the risk of infectious diseases. To examine reverse causation in the HeSSup study, we tested whether infectious diseases at baseline were associated with loneliness or social isolation at follow-up among those who did not report these exposures at baseline. The exposure was a hospital-treated infectious disease and the outcome loneliness or social isolation. We included those with and without an infectious disease at baseline (the exposure) but excluded those who reported being lonely or isolated. Incident cases were those who had become lonely or socially isolated at follow-up. To investigate disease specificity, we examined associations between loneliness or social isolation and other disease categories. In each step, participants with missing data on covariates were excluded from the analysis.
A two-sided p value of less than 0·05 was considered to indicate statistical significance. Because this was a hypothesis-testing study with multiple sensitivity analyses rather than an exploratory study with multiple independent tests, we did not correct for multiple testing.
In the HeSSup study, the analyses were done in two steps, first adjusted for age and sex and second adjusted for age, sex, education, alcohol consumption, smoking status, physical activity, and depressive symptoms.
We did all data analyses in R (version 4.1.1) between December, 2021, and January, 2022. The code for the analyses is available in the appendix (pp 11–44).
Vaccinated at Higher Risk of COVID-19 Infection: Studies
People who have received COVID-19 vaccines are more likely to get infected than those who are unvaccinated, according to two new studies.
In one paper (pdf), from Cleveland Clinic researchers, each successive dose heightened the incidence of infection. The lowest incidence was among the unvaccinated.
In the other study, researchers in Indiana found that vaccinated people had a higher incidence of infection when compared to unvaccinated people who have natural immunity, or protection from surviving an initial infection.
The studies are the latest to find low or even negative effectiveness against infection among the vaccinated. A growing number of experts are pointing to immune imprinting, or suggesting it could be a cause. The term refers to how an immune system can be locked in by exposure to an early version of a virus, thus hindering its response to mutated versions. The COVID-19 vaccines target only the original virus strain apart from the updated boosters, which target both that strain and the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant.
Old vaccines “may have trained the immune response to expect a specific narrow pre-omicron challenge; thus, the response was inferior when the actual challenge was an immune-evasive omicron subvariant,” Qatari researchers wrote in a recent paper (pdf), which found a booster dose lowered the protection against infection.
Cleveland Clinic Paper
In their paper, a preprint published by medRxiv, Cleveland Clinic researchers analyzed data from clinic employees to arrive at estimates of vaccine effectiveness. The retrospective cohort study looked at data from Sept. 12, when the new boosters became available, through Dec. 12.
Researchers not only found the updated vaccines provide poor protection, but the “unexpected” result that people who received more doses of either version of the shots had an increased risk of infection.
“A simplistic explanation might be that those who received more doses were more likely to be individuals at higher risk of COVID-19. A small proportion of individuals may have fit this description. However, the majority of subjects in this study were generally young individuals and all were eligible to have received at least 3 doses of vaccine by the study start date, and which they had every opportunity to do,” wrote the researchers, including Dr. Nabin Shrestha.
“Therefore, those who received fewer than 3 doses (>45% of individuals in the study) were not those ineligible to receive the vaccine, but those who chose not to follow the CDC’s recommendations on remaining updated with COVID-19 vaccination, and one could reasonably expect these individuals to have been more likely to have exhibited higher risk-taking behavior. Despite this, their risk of acquiring COVID-19 was lower than those who received a larger number of prior vaccine doses.”
The researchers noted that multiple other studies, including the Qatari paper, have offered similar results.
“We still have a lot to learn about protection from COVID-19 vaccination, and in addition to a vaccine’s effectiveness it is important to examine whether multiple vaccine doses given over time may not be having the beneficial effect that is generally assumed,” they said.
Researchers did not look at the effectiveness against severe illness or hospitalization.
No funding sources for the study were listed. Under “funding,” researchers listed, “none.”
“It’s important to note that the study was done in a younger, relatively healthy, healthcare employee population. It included no children, very few elderly individuals and likely few immunocompromised individuals. Therefore, we urge caution in generalizing the findings to the public, which can include different populations than was in this study,” a spokesperson for the clinic told The Epoch Times via email.
“The study found that the longer it has been since last exposure to the virus by infection or vaccination, the higher the risk of acquiring COVID-19. It also found that the higher the number of vaccine doses an individual previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19. It is unclear at this time why this was observed and how it should be interpreted, and more research is needed to either confirm or refute this finding. It’s important to note that this paper has not yet been peer reviewed.”
Indiana Paper
The Indiana researchers, including Dr. Shaun Grannis of the Regenstrief Institute, combed statewide testing and vaccination data as well as medical records to match individuals to compare incidence of infection, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. The observational study, which only included people aged 12 and older with at least one previously recorded health care encounter with the Indiana Network for Patient Care between Jan. 1, 2016, and early 2022, crunched data from between Nov. 29, 2020, and Feb. 9, 2022.
The researchers estimated the incidence of COVID-19 was higher among the vaccinated when compared with the unvaccinated but naturally immune. Six months after the index date—30 days after an initial infection or 30 days after a vaccination—the cumulative infection rate was 6.7 percent among the vaccinated and just 2.9 percent among the previously infected. The rate remained higher among the vaccinated in all age groups when the results were stratified by age.
“Interestingly, at least in the study population and at [the] time of this analysis, natural immunity appears more effective in preventing new infections, a finding that is also reported in an earlier observational study,” the researchers said, pointing to an April paper from Israeli researchers. They theorized that vaccinated people may be more likely to get tested for COVID-19, which would lead to vaccine effectiveness being underestimated.
The study also concluded that the vaccinated were better protected than the naturally immune against emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and mortality.
“The findings highlight the real-world benefits of vaccination and allude to the health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 after the initial exposure,” Grannis and his co-authors wrote.
The paper was published by the American Journal of Public Health, which is the publication of the American Public Health Association. No funding sources were listed.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a comment from the Cleveland Clinic.
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.
More studies needed to prove Covid vax cause heart inflammation: Experts
As more studies indicate heart inflammation among the young and healthy adults especially after the second dose, top doctors said on Sunday that this should not raise alarm bells as more conclusive studies are needed to prove that Covid-19 vaccines should be avoided.
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has revealed that the risk of Myocarditis, Pericarditis or Myopericarditis (acute heart inflammation) is higher after the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
In this condition, inflammation in the heart’s muscles and the covering of the heart can cause various cardiac issues.
Other studies have also reported these incidences at around 0.3 to 5 per thousand population, making it a rare phenomenon.
More importantly, these cases have been treated timely and have not resulted in fatalities, although most of these patients’ required hospitalisation.
“In other words, these cases were relatively infrequent, and most of them recovered from their condition with a simple conservative symptomatic treatment with no requirement of significant intervention,” Dr Sanjith Saseedharan, Consultant and Head Critical Care, SL Raheja Hospital, Mahim, told IANS.
Whether there are long-term repercussions for this condition, only time will tell.
“However, this complication is seen more in young individuals, probably because they have a more robust immune system which can sometimes cause dysregulated inflammation,” explained Dr Saseedharan.
As more cases of unexpected heart attacks and even strokes come to light among the healthy, young and middle-aged Indians, a new survey revealed last week that both unvaccinated and vaccinated people have been impacted by this new health emergency.
About 51 per cent citizens said they have one or more individuals in their close network who have experienced heart or brain stroke, blood clots, neurological complications, cancer acceleration, or other sudden medical conditions in the last two years.
According to the survey by LocalCircles, a social community platform, 62 per cent citizens said those in their network developed such conditions were double vaccinated, 11 per cent said that those impacted were single-dose vaccinated, while 8 per cent said they were not vaccinated.
According to the cardiologists, the steep rise in people dying unexpectedly of heart attacks is of concern.
“Though we do not have sufficient data and evidence to prove whether this is a Covid-induced phenomenon; definitely this has increased post-covid. Long term Covid sequelae could possibly be responsible in some cases,” Dr Samir Kubba, Director-Cardiology, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali, told IANS.
According to Dr Sanjeev Gera, Director and Head, Cardiology, Fortis Hospital Noida, Covid or long Covid may cause persistent inflammation in heart vessels.
“This can rupture silent blockages and cause a heart attack, especially after an unaccustomed exercises like heavy weight lifting or walking on a treadmill or running in a cold weather and the risk increases when there are risk factors for heart disease like high BP, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking or obesity,” Gera told IANS.
At the moment, no significant evidence exists that this condition can have any adverse outcome since the vaccine’s benefits far outweigh the risk, added Dr Saseedharan.