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Associations of large artery structure and function with adiposity: Effects of age, gender, and hypertension. The SardiNIA Study.
No full textAssociations of large artery structure and function with adiposity: Effects of age, gender, and hypertension. The SardiNIA Study
No full textIn the context of obesity epidemic, no large population study has extensively investigated the relationships between total and abdominal adiposity and large artery structure and function nor have such relationships been examined by gender, by age, by hypertensive status. We investigated these potential relationships in a large cohort of community dwelling volunteers participating the SardiNIA Study. Methods and results: Total and visceral adiposity and arterial properties were assessed in 6148 subjects, aged 14-102 in a cluster of 4 towns in Sardinia, Italy. Arterial stiffness was measured as aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV), arterial thickness and lumen as common carotid artery (CCA) intima-media thickness (IMT) and diameter, respectively. We reported a nonlinear relationship between total and visceral adiposity and arterial stiffness, thickness, and diameter. The association between adiposity and arterial properties was steeper in women than in men, in younger than in older subjects. Waist correlated with arterial properties better than BMI. Within each BMI quartile, increasing waist circumference was associated with further significant changes in arterial structure and function. Conclusion: The relationship between total or abdominal adiposity and arterial aging (PWV and CCA IMT) is not linear as described in the current study. Therefore, BMI- and/or waist-specific reference values for arterial measurements might need to be defined
Dilated hypertrophic phenotype of the carotid artery is associated with accelerated age-associated central arterial stiffening
Full text linkABSTRACT: Hypertrophic carotid geometric phenotypes (h-CGP) are predictors of incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). While arterial aging is hypothesized as a contributor to this associated risk, the association of CGPs with chronological age is not clear. In this manuscript we examine whether hypertrophic CGPs represent accelerated biological, rather than chronological, aging by examining their association with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), the hallmark of arterial aging. We analyzed data from 5516 participants of the SardiNIA study with a wide range of age at baseline (20–101 years), and a median follow-up time of 13 years (mean 11.5 years; maximum 17.9 years). Baseline CGPs were defined based on the common carotid lumen diameter, wall thickness, and their ratio. Subject-specific rates of change of PWV, blood pressure parameters, body mass index, glucose, and lipids were estimated using linear mixed effects models. Compared to those with typical(t-) CGP, those with dilated hypertrophy (dh-) CGP had a greater longitudinal increase in PWV; this increase was significantly greater among older individuals and men. The greater PWV longitudinal increase in dh-CGP remained significant after adjusting for baseline values and rates of change of covariates. Dilated hypertrophic CGP is independently associated with accelerated increase in age-associated arterial stiffening over time, with a strong association in men than in women. Future studies are needed to examine if this association mediates the increased risk for CVD observed in individuals with hypertrophic cardiac remodelling and the role of retarding it to reduce this risk. HIGHLIGHTS: • Individuals with dilated hypertrophic geometric phenotypes of the common carotid artery (increased age- and sex-specific wall thickness and lumen diameter) have greater future central arterial stiffening, independently of other determinants of arterial stiffening. • The dilated hypertrophic phenotype group has a greater age-specific arterial dilation, wall thickening, and stiffness (the arterial aging triad). This suggests that this phenotype is a form of accelerated aging that might explain the worse clinic outcomes observed in this group. • Understanding the natural history of the carotid geometric phenotype across the lifespan and the determinants of the deleterious progression towards the dilated hypertrophic phenotype are needed to develop interventions that reduce the adverse clinical outcomes associated with it. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11357-022-00699-w
Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency accelerates arterial aging in diabetes
Full text linkAims High glucose levels and Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PDd) have both tissue inflammatory effects. Here we determined whether G6PDd accelerates arterial aging (information linked stiffening) in diabetes.MethodsPlasma glucose, interleukin 6 (IL6), and arterial stiffness (indexed as carotid-femoral Pulse Wave Velocity, PWV) and red blood cell G6PD activity were assessed in a large (4448) Sardinian population.ResultsAlthough high plasma glucose in diabetics, did not differ by G6DP status (178.2 +/- 55.1 vs 169.0 +/- 50.1 mg/dl) in G6DPd versus non-G6PDd subjects, respectively, IL6, and PWV (adjusted for age and glucose) were significantly increased in G6PDd vs non-G6PDd subjects (PWV, 8.0 +/- 0.4 vs 7.2 +/- 0.2 m/sec) and (IL6, 6.9 +/- 5.0 vs 4.2 +/- 3.0 pg/ml). In non-diabetics, neither fasting plasma glucose, nor IL6, nor PWV were impacted by G6PDd.ConclusionG6PDd in diabetics is associated with increased inflammatory markers and accelerated arterial aging
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
Variations on the Author
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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
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
sophisticated methods
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