Jithin Sam Varghese

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Research Professor at Emory University

Background Accurate assessment of body composition during infancy is an important marker of early growth. This study aimed to develop anthropometric models to predict body composition in 3–24-month-old infants from diverse socioeconomic settings and ethnic groups. Methods An observational, longitudinal, prospective, multi-country study of infants...

OBJECTIVE Among patients with diabetes living in the U.S. with newly detected mild or moderate nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) without diabetic macular edema (DME), we aimed to characterize determinants for receiving standards of care and progression to vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (VTDR) (severe NPDR, proliferative diabetic...

Novel subphenotypes of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are associated with differences in response to treatment and risk of complications. The most widely replicated approach identified four subphenotypes (severe insulin-deficient diabetes [SIDD], severe insulin-resistant diabetes [SIRD], mild obesity-related diabetes [MOD], and mild age-related di...

Context Individuals with youth-onset type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) display substantial, but unexplained, heterogeneity in their clinical presentations and risk of complications such as diabetic neuropathy. Data-driven clustering may be useful in characterizing this heterogeneity. Objective To identify data-driven subphenotypes of newly diagnosed...

Studies of new-onset diabetes as a post-acute sequela of SARS-CoV-2 infection are difficult to generalize to all socio-demographic subgroups. To study the risk of new-onset diabetes after SARS-CoV-2 infection in a socio-demographically diverse sample. Retrospective cohort study of electronic health record (EHR) data available from the OneFlorida +...

Objective To study body mass index (BMI) changes among individuals aged 18–99 years with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection. Subjects/Methods Using real-world data from the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network of the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, we compared changes over time in BMI in an Exposed cohort (positive SARS-CoV-2 t...

Stress hyperglycemia (SH), acute kidney injury (AKI), and atrial fibrillation (AF) are common complications after cardiac surgery. We examined the predictive value of metabolite changes on inpatient outcomes in participants undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Methods: We analyzed 8,631 and 10,919 metabolites from C18 chromatography and...

New evidence highlights GLP-1 RAs' significant benefits in blood glucose and weight control for those with T2D and/or obesity, yet their real-world use and related disparities are unexplored. We conducted a pooled cross-sectional study using electronic health records from the Epic Cosmos database (2010-2023), an integrated database covering 176 mil...

Introduction: Atypical antipsychotics (AAP) significantly increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA) are weight-loss medications which may be beneficial in treating AAP-induced weight gain. We evaluated trends in prescriptions of GLP-1 RA among patients at high risk of T2D using AAP stratified by race...

Mounting evidence demonstrates that intimate partners sharing risk factors have similar propensities for chronic conditions such as hypertension. The objective was to study whether spousal hypertension was associated with one’s own hypertension status independent of known risk factors, and stratified by socio-demographic subgroups (age, sex, wealth...

Objective: To study body mass index (BMI) changes among individuals aged 18-99 years with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection. Subjects/Methods: Using real-world data from the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network of the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, we compared changes over time in BMI in an Exposed cohort (positive SARS-CoV-2...

Mounting evidence demonstrates that intimate partners sharing risk factors have similar propensities for chronic conditions such as hypertension. The objective was to study whether spousal hypertension was associated with one’s own hypertension status independent of known risk factors, and stratified by socio-demographic subgroups (age, sex, wealth...

Background Health concordance within couples presents a promising opportunity to design interventions for disease management, including hypertension. We compared the concordance of prevalent hypertension within middle‐aged and older heterosexual couples in the United States, England, China, and India. Methods and Results Cross‐sectional dyadic dat...

Introduction: Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection consist of pulmonary and extrapulmonary conditions, including a higher incidence of type 2 diabetes, but it remains unknown whether other cardiometabolic pathways are impacted by infection. Research Question: Does SARS-CoV-2 infection predict worsening cardiometabolic risk factors? Methods:...

Importance Hypertension is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Previous efforts to characterize gaps in the hypertension care continuum—including diagnosis, treatment, and control—in India did not assess district-level variation. Local data are critical for planning, implementation, and monitoring efforts to curb the burden of hyper...

Importance: Diabetes is widespread and treatable, but little is known about the diabetes care continuum (diagnosis, treatment, and control) in India and how it varies at the national, state, and district levels. Objective: To estimate the adult population levels of diabetes diagnosis, treatment, and control in India at national, state, and distr...

Background Accurate assessment of body composition during infancy is important, especially for understanding the effects of early growth on later health. This study aimed to develop an anthropometry-based approach to predict body composition in 3–24 month old infants from diverse socioeconomic settings and ethnic groups. Methods An observational, l...

Indian people are at high risk for type 2 diabetes (T2DM) even at younger ages and lower body weights. Already 74 million people in India have the disease, and the proportion of those with T2DM is increasing across all strata of society. Unique aspects, related to lower insulin secretion or function, and higher hepatic fat deposition, accompanied b...

Background Bacterial sepsis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. However, to date, there is no single test that predicts sepsis with reproducible results. We proposed that using a combination of clinical and laboratory parameters and a novel biomarker, plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) may aid in early diag...

Importance Diabetes mellitus (DM) is widespread and treatable. Little is known about the diabetes care continuum (diagnosis, treatment, and control) in India, and whether it varies by socio-demographic characteristics and vary at the national, state, and district levels. Objective To estimate the diabetes care continuum among individuals aged 18-98...

Background Subjective social status (SSS, perception of social position relative to a frame of reference) has been associated with physical, mental and socio-emotional wellbeing. However, these associations may be susceptible to unmeasured confounding by life course objective socio-economic position (SEP; such as wealth, education and employment) a...

Temporally harmonized asset indices allow the study of changes in relative wealth (mean, variance, social mobility) over time and its association with adult health and human capital in cohort studies. Conditional measures are the unexplained residuals of an indicator regressed on its past values. Using such measures, previously used to study the re...

Several international studies have stratified people with diabetes into phenotypical clusters. However, there has not been a systematic examination of the variation in these clusters across ethnic groups. For example, some clusters appear more frequent among Asians and may have lower weight, age at diagnosis and poorer beta cell function.

Objectives: We evaluated changes in priority indicators of child growth from 2006 to 2021 and examined the role of human development measures in these changes. Methods: We estimated cumulative and annualized changes in state- and district-level child growth indicators using 3 rounds of National Family Health Surveys (2005–2006, 2015–2016, 2019–202...

The survival and nutrition of children and, to a lesser extent, adolescents have improved substantially in the past two decades. Improvements have been linked to the delivery of effective biomedical, behavioural, and environmental interventions; however, large disparities exist between and within countries. Using data from 95 national surveys in lo...

Background Parity has been associated with both short- and long-term weight gain in women. However, it is not clear if timing of parity across the reproductive age has different associations with BMI. Methods To prospectively assess the association between age at childbirth and maternal change in BMI, we analyzed data from the ongoing INCAP Longit...

Temporally harmonized asset indices allow the study of changes in relative wealth (mean, variance, social mobility) over time. Conditional measures are the unexplained residuals of an indicator regressed on its past values. Using such measures, previously used to study the relative importance of key life stages for anthropometric growth, we can ide...

Background Prevalence of mental health concerns is growing worldwide, along with lack of access to and receipt of needed treatment. Current gaps in treatment provision have led to exploring alternative methods of prevention, with research linking nutrition and mental health, of particular relevance in low- and middle- income countries with high pre...

Background: Overweight/obesity increased dramatically among Indian women since 2000. We evaluated the independent contributions of economic and nutrition context to the changing distribution of overweight/obesity among women from 1998 to 2016 across India. Methods: Individual-level data from 473 912 ever married Indian women aged 18–49 in the Nati...

Background Temporally-harmonized asset-based measures of wealth can be used to study the association of life-course wealth exposures in the same scale with health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The within-individual longitudinal stability of asset-based indices of wealth in LMICs is poorly understood. Methods Using data from...

Objective We study how life course objective socioeconomic position (SEP) predicts subjective social status (SSS) and the extent to which SSS mediates the association of objective SEP with nutritional status and mental health outcomes. Methods We use data from participants of the INCAP Longitudinal Study 1969–2018 (n = 1258) from Guatemala. We use...

Background Wealth mobility, as both relative (positional) and absolute (material) wealth acquisition, may counteract negative consequences of early life adversities on adult health. Methods We use longitudinal data (1967–2018) from the INCAP birth cohort, Guatemala (n = 1386). Using wealth as a measure of socio-economic position, we assess the ass...

Background: Asset-based indices are widely-used proxy measures of wealth in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). The stability of these indices within households over time is not known. Methods: We develop a harmonized household asset index using Principal Component Analysis for the participants (n = 2392) of INCAP Longitudinal Study, Guatema...

Aims: To identify profiles of type 2 diabetes from continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) data using ambulatory glucose profile (AGP) indicators and examine the association with prevalent complications. Methods: Two weeks of CGM data, collected between 2015 and 2019, from 5901 adult type 2 diabetes patients were retrieved from a clinical database in...

Background Asset-based indices are widely-used proxy measures of wealth in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). The stability of these indices within households over time is not known. Methods We develop a harmonized household asset index for the participants (n = 2392) of INCAP Longitudinal Study, Guatemala using data from six waves of follow-u...

Objectives Identify contextual (state characteristics) and compositional (individual characteristics) drivers of changes in overweight in women from 1998–2016 across 26 states of India. Methods Nationally representative data on individual socio-demographics and objectively-measured anthropometry for non-pregnant and ever-married women 15–49y were...

Background & objectives: The haemoglobin (Hb) cut-off is a single value for all populations. It is possible that different populations might have slightly different cut-off values; but, this needs to be evaluated in healthy populations with low possibility of inadequate dietary intakes of haematopoietic nutrients. This study was conducted to assess...

Background: Anemia prevalence in India remains high despite preventive iron supplementation programs. Consequently, concurrent national policies of iron fortification of staple foods have been initiated. Objectives: This study evaluated the relation between dietary iron intake and anemia (hemoglobin <12 g/dL) in women of reproductive age (WRA; 1...

Background In India, the prevalences of stunting and anemia have declined in the last decade, but continue to remain high in many regions, whereas those of overweight and obesity have increased in all age and socioeconomic groups. Determining whether these forms of malnutrition cluster is important for the development of appropriate interventions....

Anaemia prevalence in pregnant women of India declined from 57.9% to 50.3% from National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 to NFHS-4. However, over the course of that decade, the uptake of iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation for 100 days of pregnancy improved by only 15%. To understand demand side risk factors of anaemia specifically related to I...

Recent National Family Health Survey-4 data shows that anaemia continues to be a major public health problem in India. In India much of the anaemia is due to iron deficiency, and women and children are at the greatest risk of anaemia. TheMinistry of Health and Family Welfare took a policy decision, in 2013, to develop the National Iron+ Initiative...

Although functional impairment begins with iron deficiency in the absence of anaemia, the development of anaemia heralds a homeostatic dysfunction that impairs daily activity. Iron deficiency anaemia is often the reason for poor physical performance, maternal and child morbidity and referral to a healthcare professional. (1) Women in their reproduc...