0000000000787867

AUTHOR

Walter C. Willett

Dietary Glycaemic Index Labelling: A Global Perspective

The glycaemic index (GI) is a food metric that ranks the acute impact of available (digestible) carbohydrates on blood glucose. At present, few countries regulate the inclusion of GI on food labels even though the information may assist consumers to manage blood glucose levels. Australia and New Zealand regulate GI claims as nutrition content claims and also recognize the GI Foundation’s certified Low GI trademark as an endorsement. The GI Foundation of South Africa endorses foods with low, medium and high GI symbols. In Asia, Singapore’s Healthier Choice Symbol has specific provisions for low GI claims. Low GI claims are also permitted on food labels in India. In China, there are no nation…

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Plasma Ceramides, Mediterranean Diet, and Incident Cardiovascular Disease in the PREDIMED Trial

Background: Although in vitro studies and investigations in animal models and small clinical populations have suggested that ceramides may represent an intermediate link between overnutrition and certain pathological mechanisms underlying cardiovascular disease (CVD), no prospective studies have investigated the association between plasma ceramides and risk of CVD. Methods: The study population consisted of 980 participants from the PREDIMED trial (Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea), including 230 incident cases of CVD and 787 randomly selected participants at baseline (including 37 overlapping cases) followed for ≤7.4 years. Participants were randomized to a Mediterranean diet supplemente…

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Combined associations of body weight and lifestyle factors with all cause and cause specific mortality in men and women: prospective cohort study

Objective  To evaluate the combined associations of diet, physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, and smoking with body weight on risk of all cause and cause specific mortality. Design  Longitudinal study with up to 32 years of follow-up. Setting  Nurses’ Health Study (1980-2012) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2012). Participants  74 582 women from the Nurses’ Health Study and 39 284 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were free from cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline. Main outcome measures  Exposures included body mass index (BMI), score on the alternate healthy eating index, level of physical activity, smoking habits, and alcohol drink…

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Genome-wide association studies identify four ER negative-specific breast cancer risk loci

Estrogen receptor (ER)-negative tumors represent 20-30% of all breast cancers, with a higher proportion occurring in younger women and women of African ancestry. The etiology and clinical behavior of ER-negative tumors are different from those of tumors expressing ER (ER positive), including differences in genetic predisposition. To identify susceptibility loci specific to ER-negative disease, we combined in a metaanalysis 3 genome-wide association studies of 4,193 ER-negative breast cancer cases and 35,194 controls with a series of 40 follow-up studies (6,514 cases and 41,455 controls), genotyped using a custom Illumina array, iCOGS, developed by the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environm…

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