Camille Lassale

Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona | ISGLOBAL

Aims The hypothesis of ‘metabolically healthy obesity’ implies that, in the absence of metabolic dysfunction, individuals with excess adiposity are not at greater cardiovascular risk. We tested this hypothesis in a large pan-European prospective study. Methods and results We conducted a case-cohort analysis in the 520 000-person European Prospectiv...

Background Elevated systematic inflammation is a hallmark of aging, but the association of long-term inflammation trajectories with subsequent aging phenotypes has been little examined. We assessed inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP) repeatedly over time and examined whether long-term changes predicted aging outcomes. Methods A total of 2...

With depression being the psychiatric disorder incurring the largest societal costs in developed countries, there is a need to gather evidence on the role of nutrition in depression, to help develop recommendations and guide future psychiatric health care. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the link between diet quality, measured u...

Aims Physical activity has consistently been shown to improve cardiovascular health and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels. However, only small and heterogeneous studies have investigated the effect of exercise on high-density lipoprotein functions. Our aim is to evaluate, in the largest observational study to date, the association between...

Background and aims The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to synthesize studies assessing the associations between high-density lipoprotein functionality and risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Methods We searched Medline and Embase for the identification of observational studies meeting the inclusion criteria. This meta...

Background/objective There is limited knowledge on how diet affects the epigenome of children. Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption is emerging as an important factor impacting health, but mechanisms need to be uncovered. We therefore aimed to assess the association between UPF consumption and DNA methylation in children. Methods We conducted a...

Background Antidepressant drug treatment may be associated with weight gain, but long-term studies are lacking. Methods We included 3,127 adults (1,701 women) from the REGICOR study, aged 55.6 (SD = 11.6) years on average in 2003–2006, living in the northeast of Spain. They had data at two time points (baseline and a median of 6.3 years later) on...

Key learning points What is already known•Randomized controlled trials aiming at controlling cardiometabolic risk factors in patients with diabetes, through pharmacological and lifestyle intervention, have shown encouraging results in reducing excess mortality and CVD risk. •In large-scale epidemiological studies, however, the extent to which chang...

Background. We aimed to investigate the association between long-term adherence to MedDiet and LTPA levels and the initiation of antidepressant, anxiolytic, antipsychotic and antiseizure medication in older adults. Methods. We assessed the relationship between the cumulative average of MedDiet adherence and LTPA and the initiation of medications in...

Background Social isolation and loneliness are associated with increased risk of adverse health outcomes at older ages. This study evaluated whether isolation and loneliness are related to inadequate intake of micronutrients in the diet. Methods We tested associations between social isolation and loneliness and dietary micronutrient intake 2 years...

Background Altered meal timing patterns can disrupt the circadian system and affect metabolism. Our aim was to describe sex-specific chrono-nutritional patterns, assess their association with body mass index (BMI) and investigate the role of sleep in this relationship. Methods We used the 2018 questionnaire data from the population-based Genomes f...

Background Our aim was to determine the association between diet quality and depression incidence in the population-based REGICOR cohort study, Catalonia, Spain. Methods Prospective observational study using participants’ baseline (2003–2006), follow-up (2007–2013) and clinical records data. Five diet quality scores were derived from a food freque...

Objectives The Life’s Simple 7 score (LS7) promotes cardiovascular health (CVH). Despite this, some with optimal LS7 develop cardiovascular disease (CVD), while others with poor CVH do not, termed the “CVH paradox.” This paper explores pathways explaining this paradox. Methods We examined methodological aspects: 1) misclassification bias in self-r...

Background Obesity is influenced by a complex, multifaceted system of determinants, including the food environment. Governments need evidence to act on improving the food environment. The aim of this study was to review the evidence from spatial environmental analyses and to conduct the first series of meta-analyses to assess the impact of the reta...

Background: Life expectancy at birth (LE0) is one of the most widely used indicators for determining the overall development of a country. Worldwide, LE0 has increased over the last ten years in most countries. This parameter is essential for developing countries as they strive to achieve socio-economic progress by investing significantly in social...

Objective: This prospective cohort study examined the relationships between changes in CVH during midlife, as assessed by the Life's Simple 7, and risks of CVD events and all-cause mortality among individuals with diabetes and compared to individuals without diabetes. Methods: The study utilized data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Stu...

Purpose Physical activity (PA) provides multiple health-related benefits in children and adolescents, however, at present, the majority of young people are insufficiently physically active. The aim of this study was to evaluate if neighborhood walkability and/or socio-economic status (SES) could affect the practice of walking, play outdoors and spo...

Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides critical evidence that guides local, regional, and global public health decisions. A key feature of the GBD is the collection and calculation of risk-outcome data for modifiable lifestyle exposures (e.g. dietary intake) and physical health outcomes (e.g. cance...

Aims: To explore the associations between breakfast energy intake and quality and time trajectories of cardiometabolic traits in high cardiovascular risk. Methods: 383 participants aged 55-75 from the PREDIMED-Plus cohort were included. Longitudinal averages of breakfast energy intake and quality were calculated. Three categories were defined for e...

Objectives To examine the cross-sectional association between baseline depressive symptoms and the presence of type 2 diabetes (T2D), and its association with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and other metabolic variables, and the prospective association of depressive symptoms and HbA1c after 1 year of follow-up. Methods n = 6224 Mediterranean older ad...

Aims Diet quality might influence cardiometabolic health through epigenetic changes, but this has been little investigated in adults. Our aims were to identify cytosine–phosphate–guanine (CpG) dinucleotides associated with diet quality by conducting an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) based on blood DNA methylation (DNAm) and to assess how d...

Background and Aims. To control the COVID-19 spread, in March 2020, a forced home lockdown was established in Spain. In the present study, we aimed to assess the effect of mobility and social COVID-19-established restrictions on depressive symptomatology in older adults with metabolic syndrome. We hypothesize that severe restrictions might have res...

Use of artificial sweeteners (AS) such as aspartame, cyclamate, saccharin and sucralose is widespread. We evaluated the association of use of aspartame and other AS with cancer. In total 1881 colorectal, 1510 breast, 972 prostate and 351 stomach cancer and 109 chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) cases and 3629 population controls from the Spanish M...

Background: Antidepressant drug treatment may be associated with weight gain, but long-term studies are lacking. Methods: We included 3127 adults (1701 women) from the REGICOR study, on average aged 55.6 (SD=11.6) years in 2003-2006, living in North-East of Spain. They had data at two time points (baseline and a median of 6.3 years later) on self-r...

Background: The impact of COVID-19 sanitary measures on the time trends in infectious and chronic disease consultations in Sub-Saharan Africa remains unknown. Methods: We conducted a cohort study on all emergency medical consultations from January 2016 to July 2020, from SOS Medecins in Dakar, Senegal. The consultation records provided basic dem...

Scope: Some very-low density lipoprotein (VLDL) properties may render them more pro-atherogenic. We aimed to assess whether a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) or an energy-reduced MedDiet with increased physical activity improves them. Methods and results: In a sample of the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) study, a 1-year intervention w...

Aim: To describe patterns of change in cardiovascular health (CVH) measured by the Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) over 6 years in participants with diabetes, and assess the association of these patterns of change with subsequent CVD and all-cause mortality. Methods: We conducted a long-term prospective cohort analysis (median follow-up 19 years) using the A...

Objective To examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal (2-year follow-up) associations between Dietary Diversity (DD) and depressive symptoms. Design An energy-adjusted Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) was assessed using a validated food-frequency questionnaire and was categorized into quartiles (Q). The variety in each food group was classified i...

Background In France, screening for cardiovascular risk factors is recommended during annual preventive visits. However, data are lacking on the temporal trend in women's uptake to preventive care services, and in cardiovascular and mortality outcomes. The aim of the study was to investigate the participation and mortality of women in annual preven...

Objectives Obesity is associated with increased risk of depression, but the extent to which this association is symptom-specific is unknown. We examined the associations of overweight and obesity with individual depressive symptoms. Methods We pooled data from 15 population-based cohorts comprising 57,532 individuals aged 18 to 100 years at study...

Background Use of traditional medicine (TM) is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa as a treatment option for a wide range of disease. We aimed to describe main characteristics of TM users and estimate the association of TM use with control of hypertension. Methods We used data on 2128 hypertensive patients of a cross-sectional study (convenience samp...

Resumen Introducción y objetivos Determinar la relación dosis-respuesta entre la actividad física en el tiempo libre (AFTL) actual y pasada, total y según su intensidad, y la funcionalidad de las lipoproteínas de alta densidad (HDL). Métodos Se seleccionó a 642 participantes de un estudio poblacional: la edad media era de 63,2 años y el 51,1% era...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): Camille Lassale is supported by a fellowship from “La Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PR21/11840003 Background Use of traditional medicine (TM), is widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa as treatment option for a wide range of disease. W...

Introduction and objectives To determine the dose-response association between current and past leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), total and at different intensities, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) functionality parameters. Methods Study participants (n = 642) were randomly drawn from a large population-based survey. Mean age of the partic...

Background Cardio-vascular disease and depression are thought to be closely related, due to shared risk factors. The aim of the study was to determine the association between cardio-vascular risk (CVR) factors and depressive status in a population (55–75 years) with metabolic syndrome (MetS) from the PREDIMED-Plus trial. Methods and findings Parti...

Background and aims Previous studies have shown beneficial associations between fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and cardiometabolic risk factors. However, variety in FV, which may play an important role on cardiovascular health due to the different nutrient and phytochemical content among the different groups and subgroups of FV has been poorl...

Aims: This study aimed to evaluate the association between physical activity and the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in individuals with and without CHD risk factors. Methods and results: EPIC-CVD is a case-cohort study of 29 333 participants that included 13 582 incident CHD cases and a randomly selected sub-cohort nested within the Eur...

A progressive shift away from traditional healthy dietary patterns, such as the Mediterra- nean diet (MedDiet), has been observed in recent decades. The aim of this study was to assess de- terminants of optimal adherence to the MedDiet in Spanish children and adolescents. A cross-sec- tional analysis was included in the PASOS nationwide representat...

Background and aims Cardiovascular health (CVH), as many other aspects of health, is socially patterned. However, little is known about the socioeconomic determinants of following a more or less favourable pattern of CVH change at midlife. Methods We used data on 11,049 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, a prospe...

Background and aims: The World Health Organization recommended simultaneous measurement of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) and suggested joint use to predict disease risks. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of BMI and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) categories among Spanish children and adolescents, as well as thei...

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) functional traits have emerged as relevant elements that may explain HDL antiatherogenic capacity better than HDL cholesterol levels. These properties have been improved in several lifestyle intervention trials. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize the results of such trials of the most commonly used diet...

Our aim was to summarize, through a systematic review, the current evidence from dietary intervention and observational studies on the impact of adherence to the Mediterranean diet on adiposity markers and obesity in children and adolescents. We searched Medline up to June 1, 2021 for the identification of intervention and observational studies mee...

The burden of depression is increasing worldwide, specifically in older adults. Unhealthy dietary patterns may partly explain this phenomenon. In the Spanish PREDIMED-Plus study we explored (1) the cross-sectional association between the adherence to the Prime Diet Quality Score- (PDQS), an a priori-defined high-quality food pattern and the prevale...

Ethnic inequalities in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalizations and mortality have been widely reported but there is scant understanding of how they are embodied. The UK Biobank prospective cohort study comprises around half a million people who were aged 40-69 years at study induction between 2006 and 2010 when information on ethnic ba...

Background: Consumption of a Mediterranean diet, adequate levels of physical activity, and energy-restricted lifestyle interventions have been individually associated with improvements in HDL functions. Evidence of intensive interventions with calorie restriction and physical activity is, however, scarce. Objectives: To determine whether an inte...

The association between ultra-processed food (UPF) and risk of cardiometabolic disorders is an ongoing concern. Different food processing-based classification systems have originated discrepancies in the conclusions among studies. To test whether the association between UPF consumption and cardiometabolic markers changes with the classification sys...

Objective: To describe patterns of change in cardiovascular health (CVH) measured by the Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) over 6 years in participants with diabetes, and assess the association of these patterns of change with subsequent cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality. Methods: We conducted a long-term prospective cohort analysis (median...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01056-7

Background Short dietary assessment tools can be useful to estimate food intake and diet quality in large-scale epidemiological studies with time constraints. Objective To determine the concurrent validity of the 17-item energy-restricted Mediterranean Adherence Screener (er-MEDAS) used in the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea)-Plus tria...

We aimed to assess the effects of the antioxidant-rich Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) on white blood cell count. Our study population included participants in the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea study (average age 67 years old, 58% women, high cardiovascular risk). We assessed whether a MedDiet intervention enriched in extra-virgin olive oil or nut...

Objectives Obesity is subject to strong family clustering. The relatives of participants in weight-loss interventions may also modify their lifestyle and lose weight. The aim of this study was to examine the presence and magnitude of a halo effect in untreated family members of participants enrolled in a randomized, multi-component, lifestyle inter...

There is growing evidence of, and biological plausibility for, elevated levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) being related to lower rates of respiratory disease. We tested whether pre-pandemic HDL-C within the normal range is associated with subsequent COVID-19 hospitalisations and death. We analysed data on participants from UK B...

Clinical data on the direct health effects of energy deficit or surplus beyond its impact on body weight are scarce. We aimed to assess the association with all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality of (1) sustained energy deficit or surplus, calculated according to each individual’s en-ergy intake (EI) and theoretical energy expenditure (TEE)...

To evaluate the usability of the COMPASS application with mixed-methodology, using a citizen science approach. Parents/tutors of 10–11 years old children attending a primary school in Barcelona, Spain, were invited to take part in the study. We conducted semi-structured interviews on a subset (n = 7) of participants, two weeks after using the app f...

Background The consumption of legumes is promoted as part of a healthy diet in many countries but associations of total and types of legume consumption with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are not well established. Analyses across diverse populations are lacking despite the availability of unpublished legume consumption data in prospective cohort studies. O...

BACKGROUND Mechanisms underlying the associations of high levels of physical activity (PA) and adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) with a better inflammatory profile remain unclear. Our objective was to assess the mediating role of changes in body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC), as markers of body fat in the association of...

Our aim was to assess whether long-term adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) were associated with a lower initiation of cardiovascular drug use. We studied the association between cumulative average of MedDiet adherence and LTPA and the risk of cardiovascular drug initiation in older adults at high c...

The aim of this study is to evaluate if screen time and parents’ education levels are associated with adherence to a Mediterranean dietary pattern. This cross-sectional study analyzed a representative sample of 3333 children and adolescents (8 to 16 years) included in the Physical Activity, Sedentarism, lifestyles and Obesity in Spanish youth (PASO...

Ethnic disparities in COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortality have been reported but there is scant understanding of how these inequalities are embodied. The UK Biobank prospective cohort study comprises around half a million people who were aged 40-69 years at study induction between 2006 and 2010 when information on ethnic background and potentia...

There is little information on the dietary modulation of thrombosis-related risk factors such as platelet count. We aimed to assess the effects of Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) on platelet count and related outcomes in an older population at high cardiovascular risk. In participants of the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) study, we asses...

Background and aims Previous studies, mainly focused on quantity rather than variety, have shown beneficial associations between the amount of fruit and vegetable consumed, diet quality and healthy lifestyle. The aim is to evaluate the association between fruit and vegetable consumption, diet quality and lifestyle in an elderly Mediterranean popula...

Introduction While unfavourable changes in High Density Lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol appear to be a consequence of COVID-19, the reverse has been little-studied. Our objective was to test whether HDL-cholesterol within the normal range is associated with subsequent COVID-19 hospitalisation. Design We examined 317,306 participants in the prospectiv...

Objective: To examine in older individuals at high cardiovascular risk whether following a Mediterranean diet decreased the necessity of antihypertensive drugs and modulated their associated cardiovascular risk. Methods: In the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea study, we assessed whether volunteers randomly allocated to an intervention with a Me...

Low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are associated with higher incidence of coronary disease in epidemiological studies. However, this association has not been shown to be causal according to pharmacological interventions and Mendelian randomization studies.¹ Thus, HDL atheroprotective role could lie in its functional...

Our aim is to assess whether following a Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) decreases the risk of initiating antithrombotic therapies and the cardiovascular risk associated with its use in older individuals at high cardiovascular risk. We evaluate whether participants of the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) study allocated to a MedDiet enrich...

Background The impact of COVID-19 sanitary measures on the time trends in infectious and chronic disease consultations in Sub-Saharan Africa remains unknown. Methods We conducted a cohort study on all emergency medical consultations over a five-year period, January 2016 to July 2020, from SOS Medecins in Dakar, Senegal. The consultation records pr...

Background: Falls amongst older people are common; however, around 40% of falls could be preventable. Medications are known to increase the risk of falls in older adults. The debate about reducing the number of prescribed medications remains controversial, and more evidence is needed to understand the relationship between polypharmacy and fall-rel...