Placenta weight percentile curves for singleton deliveries

Objective  To produce population-based, gender- and gestational-age-specific centile curves for placental weight.
Design  Population study.
Setting  Medical Birth Registry of Norway
Population  All singleton live births in Norway from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2002.
Methods  In a cohort of children born in Norway, placental weights and the ratio of the birthweight to the placental weight were analysed to produce percentile curves.
Main outcome measures  Placental weight, birthweight-to-placental weight ratio.
Results  Tables and figures are presented for placental percentiles curves according to gestational age and gender. Also, tables and figures are presented for the ratio of birthweight to placental weight.
Conclusions  To our knowledge, this is the first time that population percentile curves have been produced for placental weights and hence for the ratio of birthweight to placental weight. These percentile curves may act as a reference for other populations as well until population-specific curves can be produced.     

羁押人员HIV感染状况及行为学调查

目的了解羁押人员HIV感染现状以及相关高危行为情况，为制定艾滋病防治措施和决策提供科学依据。方法使用描述性研究方法对2381名羁押人员的人群特征以及HIV感染的血清流行病学调查资料进行综合分析。结果共发现HIV抗体阳性3例，阳性率1．26‰；注射吸毒、性乱、有偿供血史的分别占2．18％、30．28％、0．59％。结论羁押人员高危行为发生率较高，应尽快采取健康教育、行为干预和相应监管措施。     

Population aging in the Asia–Oceania region

Recently the term 'global aging', which refers to the universal trend of aging of the world population, is being widely used. First of all, I will shed some light on this trend of world population aging from the viewpoint of regional populations and their future projections.
Second, I will discuss about the determinants of population aging in the Asia and Oceania region. So far as the region is concerned, it will be divided into three groups of countries according to the level of population aging. The first group is the most advanced aged countries such as Japan, Australia, and New Zealand whose percentage of the elderly aged 65 and over is more than 10% in the year of 2000. The second group is the aging countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and China whose percentage of the elderly is between 5 and 10%. and the third group is the remaining countries in this region whose percentage is less than 5%. The demographic aspects of each group are analyzed and the relationships between the fertility reduction and aging are also discussed in the perspectives of the demographic transition.
Third, I will discuss about the consequences of population aging in this region with special reference to Asian developing countries. In this section, I will mention the problems of dependency burden, the so-called population bonus, health expectancy, and social security systems. Fourth, some prominent characteristics concerning the living conditions and norms or attitudes of the elderly will be indicated, and I will also raise such points like family systems, living arrangements, social participation, and Ikigai (the worth of life) peculiar to Asian countries. Fifth and finally, I will touch on the topics of the issues and policies of the aging society. At present the social status of the elderly is improving in Asian countries and it is in the hope that the myth of aging will disappear in the near future.     

胃癌的危险因素调查及癌前病变动态观察

报道温州地区胃癌高发区瑞安塘下的致癌危险因素的调查情况,结果表明它是由多种致癌危险因素的综合影响。作者应用内镜活检在18000例慢性胃病患者中查出癌前病变(高危人群)1132例,经3月～14年活检随访,表明胃癌前病变有一定的可逆转性;癌变率较高的是胃溃疡(GU)+不典型增生(ATP)组、GU+慢性萎缩性胃炎(CAG)组及CAG+ATP组均为4.1％;总癌变率为3.1％。早癌检出率占胃癌总数的48.6％,为门诊早癌检出率的6.8倍。此方法简单、经济实用。     

Ignoring Distant Genealogic Loops Leads to False-positives in Homozygosity Mapping

Distant consanguineous loops are often unknown or ignored during homozygosity mapping analysis. This may potentially lead to an increased rate of false-positive linkage results. We show that failure to take into account the distant loops may seriously underestimate the degree of consanguinity, especially for people from genetically isolated populations; in 6 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients the distant loops accounted for 57.7 % of inbreeding on average. Theoretical evaluation showed that ignoring distant loops, which account for 18-75% of inbreeding, inflates the frequency of false positive conclusions substantially in 2-point linkage analysis, up to several hundred times. In multipoint linkage analysis of the 6 AD patients a chromosome-wide "empirical" significance of 5% corresponded to a true false positive rate of 11.1%. We show that converting multiple loops to a hypothetical loop capturing all inbreeding may be a convenient solution to avoid false positive results. When extended genealogic data are not available a hypothetical loop may still be constructed based on genomic data.     

Polymorphisms in manganese superoxide dismutase and catalase genes: functional study in Hong Kong Chinese asthma patients

BACKGROUND: Reactive oxygen species may contribute to the pathogenesis of asthma. Functional genetic polymorphisms of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase are good candidates for asthma susceptibility. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association of the manganese-containing form of SOD (MnSOD) gene at amino acid position 16 (Val16Ala) and catalase gene in the promoter at A-21T and C-262T polymorphisms and asthma in a Hong Kong Chinese population. METHODS: The association study was conducted in a case-control design in asthma patients (n=251) and healthy controls (n=316) by genotyping. The functional significance was assessed by determining erythrocyte SOD and catalase activity. RESULTS: The Val allele of MnSOD at Val16Ala and the A allele of catalase gene at A-21T were not different between patients and controls, while the C allele of catalase gene at C-262T was found to be significantly different between patients and controls (P=0.033). The less frequent variant of catalase gene (-262T) was found to be protective from the development of asthma in a Hong Kong Chinese non-smoking population (adjusted odds ratio=0.35, 0.15-0.85; P=0.017). Asthma patients had elevated erythrocyte SOD and catalase activities in comparison with healthy controls (P<0.01). However, their activities were not associated with different genotypes within healthy controls or asthma patients. CONCLUSION: This is the first report showing that SOD and catalase functional activities are not associated with their respective genetic polymorphisms but related to the presence of asthma in a Hong Kong Chinese population.     

阳城县居民吸烟状况调查分析

对阳城县3646名15岁以上人群吸烟状况分析表明,男性吸烟率63.71％,女性吸烟率0.64％,男女合计吸烟率31.49％,并对不同年龄、职业、文化程度与吸烟率的关系进行了分析。吸烟心理动机:“烟草成瘾”占32.06％,“消遣”占28.48％,“解除疲劳”占16.90％,“交际”占22.56％。吸烟人群的4周患病率和慢性病患病率均高于不吸烟人群,两组差别有显著性(P<0.05,P<0.001)。     

Is there a ‘Basque’ profile regarding autosomal recessive deficiencies of coagulation factors?*

When excluding haemophilia and von Willebrand disease, coagulation factors deficiencies constitute rare autosomal recessive disorders (<1 in 500,000) of less precisely defined epidemiology. We have reported herein the distribution of these entities in the French Basque Country, a genetic isolate of very old individualization with peculiar biological specificities. The prevalence of these disorders was markedly high, especially, as already shown, factor XI deficiency. This unusual profile needs to be discussed in the view of population genetics.     

Evaluation of hypothesis testing for comparing two populations using NONMEM analysis

In a simulation study of inference on population pharmacokinetic parameters, two methods of performing tests of hypotheses comparing two populations using NONMEM were evaluated. These two methods are the test based upon 95% confidence intervals and the likelihood ratio test. Data were simulated according to a monoexponential model and, in that context, power curves for each test were generated for (i)the ratio of mean clearance and (ii)the ratio of the population standard deviations of clearance. To generate the power curves, a range of these parameters was employed; other pharmacokinetic parameters were selected to reflect the variability typically present in a Phase II clinical trial. For tests comparing the means, the confidence interval tests had approximately the same power as the likelihood ratio tests and were consistently more faithful to the nominal level of significance. For comparison of the standard deviations, and when the volume of information available was relatively small, however, the likelihood ratio test was more able to detect differences between the two groups. These results were then compared to results on parameter estimation in order to gain insight into the question of power. As an example, the nonnormality of estimates of the ratio of standard deviations plays an important role in explaining the low power for the confidence interval tests. We conclude that, except for the situation of modeling standard deviations with only sparse information, NONMEM produces tests of significance that are effective at detecting clinically significant differences between two populations.Partial support from the Upjohn Company, NIH-BRSG SO RR 07066, and the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation.     

Complex segregation analyses of bone mineral density in Chinese

China has the largest population in the world; approximately 7% of the total population suffers from primary osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is mainly characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD). In the present study, familial correlation and segregation analyses for spine and hip BMDs have been undertaken for the first time in a Chinese sample composed of 401 nuclear families with a total of 1,260 individuals. The results indicate a major gene of additive inheritance for hip BMD, whereas there is no evidence of a major gene influencing spine BMD. Significant familial residual effects are found for both traits, and heritability estimates (±SE) for spine and hip BMDs are 0.807(0.099) and 0.897(0.101), respectively. Sex and age differences in genotype‐specific average BMD are also observed. This study provides the first evidence quantifying the high degree of genetic determination of BMD variation in the Chinese.