Pascal Bovet

University Center for General Medicine and Public Health (Unisanté)

Objective It is well-established that overweight/obesity is a major risk factor for left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in childhood. However, it is still unclear if reversing from overweight/obesity to normal weight is associated with decreased LVH in children. This study aimed to examine the association between weight status change during four yea...

Objective This cross-sectional study aims to assess the associations between serum leptin, adiponectin, leptin-to-adiponectin ratio (L/A ratio), and metabolic syndrome (MS) and HOMA-IR in five African-origin populations: Ghana, South Africa, Jamaica, Seychelles, and US. Methods Clinical measures included serum glucose, insulin, adipokines, blood p...

Exposure to toxic metals impacts obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) risk. Yet, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Gut microbiota has been strongly associated with progression of cardiometabolic risk. To determine whether high metal exposures and gut dysbiosis interact to promote metabolic dysregulation and cardiometabolic risk, we as...

Disclosure: J. Jorgensen: None. C. Choo-Kang: None. L. Issa: None. J.A. Gilbert: None. G. Ecklu-Mensah: None. A. Luke: None. K. Bedu-Addo: None. T. Forrester: None. P. Bovet: None. E.V. Lambert: None. D. Rae: None. M. Argos: None. Y. Dai: None. R.M. Sargis: None. L.R. Dugas: None. B.T. Layden: None. Obesity is associated with an increased risk for...

Background Adiposity can be measured using BMI (which is based on weight and height) as well as indices of abdominal adiposity. We examined the association between BMI and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) within and across populations of different world regions and quantified how well these two metrics discriminate between people with and without hyper...

Background The association of maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy with severe neonatal morbidity (SNM) is still inconclusive. We aimed to examine the associations of the timing and the intensity of maternal cigarette smoking with infant SNM in the USA. Methods We used birth certificate data of 12 150 535 women aged 18–49 years who had live...

The prevalence of multiple age-related cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors is high among individuals living in low- and middle-income countries. We described receipt of healthcare services for and management of hypertension and diabetes among individuals living with these conditions using individual-level data from 55 nationally representativ...

Objectives Given the increasing prevalence of obesity and need for effective interventions, there is a growing interest in understanding how an individual’s body image can inform obesity prevention and management. This study’s objective was to examine the use of silhouette showcards to measure body size perception compared with measured body mass i...

Background Women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have higher insulin resistance and/or reduced secretion, an increased risk of future diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which may be due to a pathological activation of the innate immune system. C-reactive protein (CRP) is induced by inflammatory cytokines and reflects innate immune activi...

Disclosure: J. Jorgensen: None. C. Choo-Kang: None. G. Ecklu-Mensah: None. J. Gilbert: None. A. Luke: None. K. Bedu-Addo: None. T.E. Forrester: None. P. Bovet: None. E.V. Lambert: None. D. Rae: None. L. Dugas: None. Y. Dai: None. B.T. Layden: None. Obesity is a global public health crisis, which since 1975 has tripled world-wide. Concomitantly, obe...

Background The global burden of diabetes is rising rapidly, yet there is little evidence on individual-level diabetes prevention activities undertaken by health systems in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Here we describe the population at high risk of developing diabetes, estimate diabetes prevention activities, and explore sociodem...

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide. The burden of disability after a stroke is also large, and is increasing at a faster pace in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Alarmingly, the incidence of stroke is increasing in young and middle-aged people (ie, age <55 years) globally. Should these trends...

There is considerably greater variation in metabolic rates between men than between women, in terms of basal, activity and total (daily) energy expenditure (EE). One possible explanation is that EE is associated with male sexual characteristics (which are known to vary more than other traits) such as musculature and athletic capacity. Such traits m...

The relationship between microbiota, short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), and obesity remains enigmatic. We employ amplicon sequencing and targeted metabolomics in a large ( n = 1904) African origin cohort from Ghana, South Africa, Jamaica, Seychelles, and the US. Microbiota diversity and fecal SCFAs are greatest in Ghanaians, and lowest in Americans,...

Background: Testing for the risk factors of cardiovascular disease, which include hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolaemia, is important for timely and effective risk management. Yet few studies have quantified and analysed testing of cardiovascular risk factors in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) with respect to sociodemogr...

Background Several cardiovascular (CV) risk factors are reported to be associated with abnormal cardiac structure in children and adults. However, no study has assessed the association between clustering of multiple CV risk factors and left ventricular geometric (LVG) remodeling. We examined the association between clustering of CV risk factors and...

Background This study was aimed to examine the association between cigarette smoking in childhood and mortality in adulthood, and the impact of non-smoking duration among smokers who subsequently quit smoking. Methods We used data from 472,887 adults aged 18–85 years examined once in the US National Health Interview Survey in 1997–2014, which was...

Background: The recently published "Life's Essential 8" (LE8) by the American Heart Association has overcome some limitations in evaluating cardiovascular health (CVH) in the previous "Life's Simple 7." Objective: We aimed to examine the secular trends in CVH, as assessed by the LE8, in US adults from 2005 to 2018. Methods: Using cross-section...

Obesity is caused by a prolonged positive energy balance1,2. Whether reduced energy expenditure stemming from reduced activity levels contributes is debated3,4. Here we show that in both sexes, total energy expenditure (TEE) adjusted for body composition and age declined since the late 1980s, while adjusted activity energy expenditure increased ove...

The relationship between gut microbiota, short chain fatty acid (SCFA) metabolism, and obesity is still not well understood. Here we investigated these associations in a large (n=1904) African origin cohort from Ghana, South Africa, Jamaica, Seychelles, and the US. Fecal microbiota diversity and SCFA concentration were greatest in Ghanaians, and lo...

Background It is well documented that birth weight and childhood weight are associated with the blood pressure (BP) levels in childhood. However, the impact of weight status change from birth to childhood on BP among children is less well described. We aimed to assess the association between changes in weight status from birth to childhood and high...

Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6 . Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural an...

The relationship between the gut microbiota, short chain fatty acid (SCFA) metabolism, and obesity remains unclear due to conflicting reports from studies with limited statistical power. Additionally, this association has rarely been explored in large scale diverse populations. Here, we investigated associations between fecal microbial composition,...

The Global Diabetes Compact is a WHO-driven initiative uniting stakeholders around goals of reducing diabetes risk and ensuring that people with diabetes have equitable access to comprehensive, affordable care and prevention. In this report we describe the development and scientific basis for key health metrics, coverage, and treatment targets acco...

Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, educatio...

BACKGROUND The American Heart Association recently published new cardiovascular health (CVH) metrics called “Life’s Essential 8” (LE8). OBJECTIVE We aimed to examine the secular trends in CVH, as assessed by LE8, in the US adults from 2005 to 2018. METHODS Using cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey betwee...

Background: Few studies have examined access to cigarettes among adolescents. To address this, we aimed to examine cigarette access and purchase patterns among adolescent cigarette smokers based on the most recent data from the Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (GYTS). Methods: We used the most recent school-based GYTS data (2010-2018) on 49 856 adol...

Background: Physical activity (PA) surveillance, policy, and research efforts need to be periodically appraised to gain insight into national and global capacities for PA promotion. The aim of this paper was to assess the status and trends in PA surveillance, policy, and research in 164 countries. Methods: We used data from the Global Observator...

Background Hyperglycaemic disorders of pregnancy are associated with offspring cardiovascular alterations. Methods MySweetHeart cohort study aimed to assess the effect of maternal gestational diabetes (GDM) on offsprings’ cardiovascular health. Newborns underwent clinical and echocardiographic examinations between 2016 and 2020. Results Compared...

Water is essential for survival, but one in three individuals worldwide (2.2 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. Water intake requirements largely reflect water turnover (WT), the water used by the body each day. We investigated the determinants of human WT in 5604 people from the ages of 8 days to 96 years from 23 countries using...

In mammals, trait variation is often reported to be greater among males than females. However, to date, mainly only morphological traits have been studied. Energy expenditure represents the metabolic costs of multiple physical, physiological, and behavioral traits. Energy expenditure could exhibit particularly high greater male variation through a...

Objectives To determine the prevalence and frequency of using any tobacco product and each of a detailed set of tobacco products, how tobacco use and use frequency vary across countries, world regions, and World Bank country income groups, and the socioeconomic and demographic gradients of tobacco use and use frequency within countries. Design Sec...

Background Effective equity-focused health policy for hypertension in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) requires an understanding of the condition’s current socioeconomic gradients and how these are likely to change in the future as countries develop economically. Objectives This cross-sectional study aimed to determine how hypertension pre...

Data resource basics Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally.¹ In recent decades, a rising prevalence of major CVD risk factors including diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia has been observed in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where CVD was not previously considered a major health pr...

This study aims to examine the association between short-term exposure to ambient PM1, PM1-2.5, and PM2.5 and forced vital capacity (FVC). Population data were obtained from a school-based cross-sectional survey in Shandong in 2014. Distributed lag non-linear models were used to examine the association between exposure to PM1, PM1–2.5, and PM2.5 an...

The Pulvers’ silhouette showcards provide a non-invasive and easy-to-use way of assessing an individual’s body size perception using nine silhouette shapes. However, their utility across different populations has not been examined. This study aimed to assess: 1) the relationship between silhouette perception and measured anthropometrics, i.e., body...

Objectives. To describe the recent global prevalence of e-cigarette use and to investigate its associated factors among youths aged 12 to 16 years in 68 countries and territories (hereafter “countries”). Methods. We analyzed 485 746 youths aged 12 to 16 years from the population-based cross-sectional Global Youth Tobacco Survey conducted in 67 coun...

Background Short-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and PM10 is associated with increased risk of mortality and hospital admissions for stroke. However, there is less evidence regarding the effect of exposure to PM1 on stroke incidence. We estimated the incidence risk of stroke and the attributable fractions related to short-term exposure to ambient PM...

Background The associations of maternal cigarette smoking with congenital anomalies in offspring have been inconsistent. This study aimed to clarify the associations of the timing and intensity of maternal cigarette smoking with 12 subtypes of birth congenital anomalies based on a nationwide large birth cohort in the USA. Methods We used nationwid...

Low total energy expenditure (TEE, MJ/d) has been a hypothesized risk factor for weight gain, but repeatability of TEE, a critical variable in longitudinal studies of energy balance, is understudied. We examine repeated doubly labeled water (DLW) measurements of TEE in 348 adults and 47 children from the IAEA DLW Database (mean ± SD time interval:...

Background Cardiometabolic (CM) risk affects approximately 25% of adults globally, and is diagnosed by meeting 3 out of 5 of the following CM risk factors: elevated blood pressure, high triglycerides, elevated blood sugar, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level, and abdominal obesity. Adults with CM risk are approximately 22% more likely to have...

Background As the prevalence of hypercholesterolemia is increasing in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), detailed evidence is urgently needed to guide the response of health systems to this epidemic. This study sought to quantify unmet need for hypercholesterolemia care among adults in 35 LMICs. Methods and findings We pooled individual-lev...

Because of the limitation of body mass index (BMI) in distinguishing adipose mass from muscle, the tri-ponderal mass index (TMI) has been proposed as a new indicator for better assessing adiposity in children and adolescents. However, it remains unclear whether TMI performs better than BMI or other adiposity indices in predicting obesity status in...

Sleep disorders are increasingly being characterized in modern society as contributing to a host of serious medical problems, including obesity and metabolic syndrome. Changes to the microbial community in the human gut have been reportedly associated with many of these cardiometabolic outcomes. In this study, we investigated the impact of sleep le...

Background: Physical activity may be a way to increase and maintain fat-free mass (FFM) in later life, similar to the prevention of fractures by increasing peak bone mass. Objectives: A study is presented of the association between FFM and physical activity in relation to age. Methods: In a cross