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Wrist circumference is associated with systolic blood pressure in a population of overweight/obese children and adolescents.
No full textWrist circumference is associated with systolic blood pressure in a population of overweight/obese children and adolescents
G. Campagna1, S. Zampetti1, F. Lucantoni1, M. Capizzi1, L. Marandola1, C. Chiesa2, L. Pacifico3, A. Vania4, R. Buzzetti1; 1Experimental Medicine, Sapienza, University of Rome, 2National Research Counci, Institute of Translational Pharmacology, 3Policlinico Umberto I Hospital, Sapienza, University of Rome, 4Pediatric, Sapienza, University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Background and aims: Insulin resistance, according to many pathophysiological models is one of the most important cardiovascular (CV) risk factors. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the wrist circumference is a clinical marker for insulin-resistance in overweight/obese children and adolescents. Hypertension is another relevant cardiovascular risk factor and obesity is one of its major determinants in children. Various indexes of obesity, such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio and neck circumference, are associated with a high risk of hypertension. The aim of the present study was to investigate a possible association between the wrist circumference and systolic (S) and diastolic (D) blood pressure (BP) in a population of overweight/obese children and adolescents. Materials and methods: N=1133 overweight/obese children and adolescents (580 boys and 553 girls) were consecutively enrolled. In all children and adolescents, body weight, height, SBP, DBP,wrist circumference, SDS-BMI, fasting glucose, fasting insulin levels, and lipid profiles were evaluated at entry. Insulin resistance was estimated according to the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). Subjects were evaluated by a doctor for the pubertal stages. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to verify the normality of distribution of continuous variables. The dependent variables for this study were SBP and diastolic DBP; independent variables were SDS-BMI and wrist circumference adjusted for Tanner stage. Multivariate linear regression analyses were used to investigate the influence of independent variables on the variance of blood pressure. All analyses were performed using Statistical Analysis Software (SAS v.9.3). Results: The frequency of hypertension was 22.6% in males and 28.2% in females (p=0.048). Results of the multivariate regression analysis performed in the 1133 children and adolescents stratified according to gender, using wrist circumference and SDS-BMI as independent variable and blood pressure as the dependent variables showed that SBP was significantly associated with wrist circumference and SDS-BMI both in males and females (p≤0.04 for both comparison). We found no association between DBP and wrist circumference in both gender. Wrist circumference and SDS-BMI together explained 21% of the variance of SBP in males and 18% in females. To evaluate the contribution of wrist circumference and SDS-BMI, respectively, to explained variance (R2) of SBP index, we used the backward method. The total variance of SBP was explained by wrist circumference for 17% and by SDS-BMI for 2.7% in males; and by wrist circumference for 14% and SDS-BMI 1% in females. Conclusion: The wrist circumference in overweight/obese children and adolescents is correlated with SBP, confirming that this bone anthropometric marker could be useful for the prediction of cardiovascular risk being correlated with insulin resistance and its deleterious effects.
Disclosure: G. Campagna: None
Increased circulating zonulin in children with biopsy-proven nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
No full textAIM: To investigate the potential association of circulating zonulin with the stage of liver disease in obese children with biopsy-confirmed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). METHODS: A case-control study was performed. Cases were 40 obese children with NAFLD. The diagnosis of NAFLD was based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with high hepatic fat fraction (HFF >= 5%), and confirmed by liver biopsy with >= 5% of hepatocytes containing macrovesicular fat. Controls were selected from obese children with normal levels of aminotransferases, and without MRI evidence of fatty liver as well as of other causes of chronic liver diseases. Controls were matched (1-to 1) with the cases on age, gender, pubertal stage and as closely as possible on body mass index-standard deviation score. All participants underwent clinical examination, laboratory tests including zonulin, inflammatory and metabolic parameters, and MRI for measurement of HFF and visceral adipose tissue. RESULTS: Zonulin values were significantly greater in obese subjects with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD [median (interquartile range), 4.23 (3.18-5.89) vs 3.31 (2.05-4.63), P < 0.01]. In patients with NAFLD, zonulin concentrations increased significantly with the severity of steatosis and the Spearman's coefficient revealed a positive correlation between zonulin values and steatosis (r = 0.372, P < 0.05); however, we did not find a significant correlation between zonulin and lobular inflammation (P = 0.23), ballooning (P = 0.10), fibrosis score (P = 0.18), or presence of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (P = 0.17). Within the entire study population, zonulin levels were positively associated with gamma-glutamyl transferase, 2-h insulin, HFF, and negatively associated with whole-body insulin sensitivity index (WBISI), after adjustment for age, gender and pubertal status. When the associations were restricted to the group of NAFLD patients, 2-h insulin, hepatic fat, and WBISI retained statistical significance. CONCLUSION: Circulating zonulin is increased in children and adolescents with NAFLD and correlates with the severity of steatosis. (C) 2014 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved
Cut-off levels of wrist circumference to predict insulin resistance in overweight and obese children and adolescents.
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
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koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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