Luigi Palla

Sapienza University of Rome | la sapienza · Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases

Background Traditional recall approaches of data collection for assessing dietary intake and time use are prone to recall bias. Studies in high- and middle-income countries show that automated wearable cameras are a promising method for collecting objective health behavior data and may improve study participants’ recall of foods consumed and daily...

Malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites, is a major global health challenge. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax genomes is providing insights into parasite genetic diversity, transmission patterns, and can inform decision making for clinical and surveillance purposes. Advances in sequencing technologies are...

The measurement of biological tissues’ dielectric properties plays a crucial role in determining the state of health, and recent studies have reported microwave biosensing to be an innovative method with great potential in this field. Research has been conducted from the tissue level to the cellular level but, to date, cellular adhesion has never b...

Introduction Mortality rates in infancy and childhood are lower in females than males. However, for children admitted to Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU), mortality has been reported to be lower in males, although males have higher admission rates. This female mortality excess for the subgroup of children admitted in intensive care is not wel...

Accurate data are essential for investigating relationships between maternal time-use patterns and nutritional outcomes. The 24 h recall (24HR) has traditionally been used to collect time-use data, however, automated wearable cameras (AWCs) with an image-assisted recall (IAR) may reduce recall bias. This study aimed to evaluate their concurrent cri...

Background Measles outbreaks increased worldwide during 2017-19. The largest outbreak in the World Health Organisation Western Pacific region occurred in the Philippines where first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1) coverage had reduced to 75% in 2018. The aim of this study was to summarise paediatric measles admissions to the national infecti...

Objective The aim of this study was to identify dietary patterns (DPs) and to analyze their association with cardiovascular risk factors including metabolic biomarkers and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress in a cross-sectional population-based study with 959 Brazilian adults from Viçosa. Methods Food consumption was assessed by food fre...

Background Drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is complicating the effective treatment and control of tuberculosis disease (TB). With the adoption of whole genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool, machine learning approaches are being employed to predict M. tuberculosis resistance and identify underlying genetic mutations. However, machine lea...

Within the UK, child mortality from all causes has declined for all ages over the last three decades. However, distinct inequality remains, as child mortality rates are generally found to be higher in males. A significant proportion of childhood deaths in the UK occur in Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). We studied the association of sex with...

Background: Blood glucose is higher in people working night-shifts compared to day-workers. Changes to eating behaviour, activity, and sleep patterns in addition to circadian disruption are likely to impact glucose management in night-shift workers with Type 2 diabetes. Aim: To investigate current dietary intake and glucose variability during ni...

Time of eating is associated with diabetes and obesity but little is known about less healthy foods and specific time of their intake over the 24 h of the day. In this study, we aimed to identify potential relationships between foods and their eating time and to see whether these associations may vary by diabetes status. The National Diet and Nutri...

Background Fever with jaundice is a common symptom of some infectious diseases. In public health surveillance within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), yellow fever is the only recognized cause of fever with jaundice. However, only 5% of the surveillance cases are positive for yellow fever and thus indicate the involvement of other pathoge...

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex chronic condition affecting multiple body systems, with unknown cause, unclear pathogenesis mechanisms, and fluctuating symptoms which may lead to severe debilitation. It is frequently reported to have been triggered by an infection, but there are no clear differences in expos...

Background Malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites, is a major global public health problem. To assist an understanding of malaria pathogenesis, including drug resistance, there is a need for the timely detection of underlying genetic mutations and their spread. With the increasing use of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of Plasmodium DNA, the potenti...

Portion control utensils and reduced size tableware amongst other tools, have the potential to guide portion size intake but their effectiveness remains controversial. This review evaluated the breadth and effectiveness of existing portion control tools on learning/awareness of appropriate portion sizes (PS), PS choice, and PS consumption. Addition...

Introduction In the general population, female children have been reported to have a survival advantage. For children admitted to paediatric intensive care units (PICUs), mortality has been reported to be lower in males despite the higher admission rates for males into intensive care. This apparent sex reversal in PICU mortality is not well studied...

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex chronic condition affecting multiple body systems, with unknown cause, unclear pathogenesis mechanisms, and fluctuating symptoms which may lead to severe debilitation. It is frequently reported to have been triggered by an infection, particularly with herpes virus family memb...

Objective To examine the cross-sectional association between vitamins A, E, C and D from diet and supplements and the prevalence of respiratory complaints in a nationally representative sample of UK adults. Methods Data from adult participants of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme years 2008–2016 were used for the analysis. L...

Background There is growing recognition that recent global increases in obesity are the product of a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. However, in gene-environment studies of obesity, ‘environment’ usually refers to individual behavioural factors that influence energy balance, whereas more upstream environmental factors a...

Rationale Within the UK, child mortality from all causes has declined for all ages over the last three decades. However, distinct inequality remains, as child mortality rates vary by sex and are generally found to be higher in males. A significant proportion of childhood deaths in the UK occur in Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). Objectives W...

Accurate and timely data are essential for identifying populations at risk for undernutrition due to poor quality diets, for implementing appropriate interventions, and evaluating change. Life-logging wearable cameras (LLWC) have been used to prospectively capture food/beverage consumed by adults in high income countries. This study aimed to evalua...

We propose a framework for understanding and interpreting the pathophysiology of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) that considers wider determinants of health and long-term temporal variation in pathophysiological features and disease phenotype throughout the natural history of the disease. As in other chronic diseases, ME...

This study investigates the relationship between the consumption of foods and eating locations (home, school/work and others) in British adolescents, using data from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Program (2008–2012 and 2013–2016). A cross-sectional analysis of 62,523 food diary entries from this nationally representative sample...

The timing of energy/nutrient intake has been previously shown to be associated with obesity and diabetes (Almoosawi et al, 2019) and recently derived diurnal patterns of energy/carbohydrate intake suggested the potential interplay of circadian biology and social behaviour contributing to obesity (Palla&Almoosawi, 2019) but didn't describe the rela...

Background A quarter of a century ago, two global events—the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing—placed gender equality and reproductive health and rights at the centre of the development agenda. Progress towards these goals has been slower than hoped. We used survey d...

Aims: To characterize ethnic differences in the severity and clinical management of type 2 diabetes at initial diagnosis. Methods: An observational cohort study of 179,886 people with incident type 2 diabetes between 2004 and 2017 in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink was undertaken; 63.4% of the cohort were of white ethnicity, 3.9% south A...

Background: Epidemiological studies indicate that gene-environment interactions play a role in atopic dermatitis. Objective: To review the evidence for gene-environment interactions in atopic dermatitis aetiology, focusing on FLG loss-of-function mutations. Methods: Systematic search from inception to September 2018 in EMBASE, MEDLINE and BIOS...

Abstract Background Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex disease, whose exact cause remains unclear. A wide range of risk factors has been proposed that helps understanding potential disease pathogenesis. However, there is little consistency for many risk factor associations, thus we undertook an exploratory stud...

This study aims at combining time and quantity of carbohydrate (CH) intake in the definition of eating patterns in UK adults and investigating the association of the derived patterns with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) Rolling Program included 6155 adults in the UK. Time of the day was categorized into 7 pre-de...

Background: Tuberculosis disease, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a major public health problem. The emergence of M. tuberculosis strains resistant to existing treatments threatens to derail control efforts. Resistance is mainly conferred by mutations in genes coding for drug targets or converting enzymes, but our knowledge of these mutati...

Background: There is growing recognition that recent global increases in obesity are the product of a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. However, in gene-environment studies of obesity, "environment" usually refers to individual behavioural factors that influence energy balance, while more upstream environmental factors ar...

The day-time patterns of carbohydrate intake in the UK adults – results from the NDNS RP (2008-16) - Volume 78 Issue OCE1 - C. Wang, S. Almoosawi, L. Palla

Mounting evidence points towards the existence of an association between energy intake in the evening and increased prevalence and risk of overweight and obesity. The present study aimed to describe diurnal eating patterns (DEP) in a nationally representative sample of UK adolescents, and to relate the derived DEP to anthropometrical measures. Data...

Background In studies of gene–environment interactions and obesity, the term environment usually refers to individual behavioural factors that influence energy balance. However, evidence suggests that the built environments in which individuals live, work, and play are associated with obesity and may therefore be environmental triggers of genetic r...

Limited observational studies have described the relationship between sleep duration and overall diet. The present study investigated the association between sleep duration on weekdays or social jetlag and empirically derived dietary patterns in a nationally representative sample of UK adults, aged 19–64 years old, participating in the 2008–2012 UK...

Chrono-nutrition is an emerging research field in nutritional epidemiology that encompasses 3 dimensions of eating behavior: timing, frequency, and regularity. To date, few studies have investigated how an individual's circadian typology, i.e., one's chronotype, affects the association between chrono-nutrition and cardiometabolic health. This revie...

Limited observational studies have described the relationship between sleep duration and overall diet. The present study investigated the association between sleep duration at weekdays and empirically derived dietary patterns in a nationally representative sample of UK adults, aged 19-64 years old, participating in the 2008-2012 UK National Diet an...

Investigating eating time patterns in UK adults from The 2008–2012 National Diet and Nutrition Survey - Volume 77 Issue OCE1 - R. Mansukhani, L. Palla

An investigation of the association between foods consumed and time-of-day in UK adolescents using the NDNS Rolling Programme (2008–2012) - Volume 76 Issue OCE4 - L. Palla, A.N. Chapman, J.D. Johnston, S. Almoosawi

Background: High failure rates of metal-on-metal (MoM) hip implants prompted regulatory authorities to issue worldwide safety alerts. Circulating cobalt from these implants causes rare but fatal autopsy-diagnosed cardiotoxicity. There is concern that milder cardiotoxicity may be common and underrecognized. Although blood metal ion levels are easil...

Although breakfast consumption is widely considered to be an important component of a healthy lifestyle, few UK studies have examined differences in nutrient intakes between breakfast consumers and breakfast skippers among children and adolescents. We investigated associations between breakfast skipping in 4–18-year-olds and their nutrient intakes...

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children has risen greatly worldwide. Diet and poor physical activity are the two risk factors usually examined, but epidemiological evidence exists suggesting a link between sleep duration and overweight/obesity in children. The aim of this study was to describe the relationship among body mass index (BM...

Investigating the relationship between foods consumed and eating location for UK adolescents using the NDNS - Volume 76 Issue OCE1 - A.N. Chapman, E. Almiron-Roig, G.K. Pot, L. Palla

This paper presents the application of correspondence analysis (CA) for investigating associations using confidence regions (CRs) with a focus on facilitating mining the data and hypothesis generation. We study the relationship between locations and 'less-healthy' food consumption by UK teenagers. CA allows for a quick visual inspection of the vari...

This paper presents the application of correspondence analysis (CA) for investigating associations using confidence regions (CRs) with a focus on facilitating mining the data and hypothesis generation. We study the relationship between locations and "less-healthy" food consumption by UK teenagers. CA allows for a quick visual inspection of the vari...

The increasing rate in obesity amongst young people is a national concern. Recently the location of eating has been implicated in changes in diet quality in adolescents (1). Data from four day food diaries from 884 teenagers aged 11–18 years participating in the 2008–2012 UK National Dietary and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme (NDNS RP) were use...

Several methods have been proposed to estimate the variance in disease liability explained by large sets of genetic markers. However, current methods do not scale up well to large sample sizes. Linear mixed models require solving high-dimensional matrix equations, and methods that use polygenic scores are very computationally intensive. Here we pro...

The statistician and geneticist Anthony Edwards is interviewed about his career and the scientific connections between Italy and Britain in the past century. Last student of Fisher and witness and link of the relation between R. A. Fisher and L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, he started his career in Italy working on statistical methods for evolutionary trees,...

Unlabelled: Ethnic differences in renal calcium and phosphate excretion exist, which may depend on differences in their dietary intakes and regulatory factors. We report highly significant differences in urinary calcium and phosphate excretion between white British and Gambian adults after statistical adjustment for mineral intakes, indicating an...

This study reports for the first time the use of 1H NMR technique combined with chemometrics to study the metabolic profile of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) beans of different varieties, origin and fermentation levels. Results of PCA applied to cocoa bean 1H NMR dataset showed that the main factor influencing the cocoa bean metabolic profile is the fe...

Background: We designed a prospective, single-center study to assess whether blood metal ion levels could predict implant failure in patients managed with unilateral metal-on-metal hip resurfacing or total hip arthroplasty. Methods: Five hundred and ninety-seven patients who had received unilateral Articular Surface Replacement prostheses at lea...

Background: Understanding of the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes (T2D) has progressed rapidly, but the interactions between common genetic variants and lifestyle risk factors have not been systematically investigated in studies with adequate statistical power. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the combined effects of genetic and lifestyle factors o...

The Italian hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) cultivar "Tonda Gentile Trilobata" (TGT) is covered by protected geographical indication "Nocciola Piemonte" and is well-known as the best-suited hazelnut for the industrial transformation into roasted kernel. The hazelnut cultivar identification is primarily based on morphological characteristics, so ther...

The comparative performance of existing models for prediction of type 2 diabetes across populations has not been investigated. We validated existing non-laboratory-based models and assessed variability in predictive performance in European populations. We selected non-invasive prediction models for incident diabetes developed in populations of Euro...

Insufficient energy compensation after a preload (meal, snack, or beverage) has been associated with excess energy intake, but experimental studies have used heterogeneous methodologies, making energy compensation difficult to predict. The aim of this systematic review was to analyze the relative contributions of two key variables, preload physical...

Renal conservation of calcium in Gambian compared to British older adults - Volume 72 Issue OCE4 - J. Redmond, L. M. A. Jarjou, L. Palla, A. Prentice, I. Schoenmakers

Increases in dietary restraint and decreases in disinhibition are associated with greater weight loss during obesity treatment but their relationship with dietary intake is less clear. Seven hundred and seventy-two overweight and obese adults participated in a randomised controlled trial of two 12-month weight loss interventions. Participants were...

Waist circumference (WC) is a simple and reliable measure of fat distribution that may add to the prediction of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but previous studies have been too small to reliably quantify the relative and absolute risk of future diabetes by WC at different levels of body mass index (BMI). Methods and Findings The prospective InterAct case...

Aims/hypothesis We examined the independent and com-bined associations of physical activity and obesity with incident type 2 diabetes in men and women. Methods The InterAct case–cohort study consists of 12,403 incident type 2 diabetes cases and a randomly selected subcohort of 16,154 individuals, drawn from a total cohort of 340,234 participants wi...

Forest plot of the effect of the interaction between the FTO rs9939609 SNP and physical activity on risk of obesity (BMI ≥30 versus BMI <25 kg/m2) in a random effects meta-analysis of 131,474 adults. (PDF)

Forest plot of the effect of the interaction between the FTO rs9939609 SNP and physical activity on waist circumference in a random effects meta-analysis of 159,848 adults. (PDF)

Forest plot of the effect of the interaction between the FTO rs9939609 SNP and physical activity on age- and sex-standardized body fat percentage in a random effects meta-analysis of 6,864 children and adolescents. (PDF)

Association of physical activity with BMI, waist circumference, body fat percentage, risk of obesity, and risk of overweight in a random effects meta-analysis of up to 218,166 adults. (PDF)

Funnel plot of the effect of the interaction between the FTO rs9939609 SNP and physical activity on BMI in a random effects meta-analysis of 45 studies (218,166 adults). (PDF)