Taulant Muka

Epistudia

Dietary phytochemical intake associations with cardiovascular health and mortality remain unknown. We studied the relations between total dietary phytochemical intake and cardiovascular health outcomes in a middle-aged Swiss population. We analyzed data spanning 2009 to 2021 from a prospective cohort study in Lausanne, Switzerland, including 3721 p...

Aim: To examine the association of iron biomarkers with menopausal status and assess whether these biomarkers can help differentiate menopausal status beyond age. Methods: In this cross-sectional study we included 1679 women from the CoLaus and 2133 from the PREVEND cohorts, with CoLaus used as primary cohort and PREVEND for replication. Ferritin,...

Background and Aims: Despite advances in understanding atrial fibrillation (AF) pathophysiology through the lens of transcriptomics, marked differences in the key AF genes between studies remain, while drugs targeting preserved dysregulated pathways are limited. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a consensus transcriptional s...

Background Genome-wide association studies for glycemic traits have identified hundreds of loci associated with these biomarkers of glucose homeostasis. Despite this success, the challenge remains to link variant associations to genes, and underlying biological pathways. Methods To identify coding variant associations which may pinpoint effector ge...

Background: Research has indicated that sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is associated with glucose homeostasis and may play a role in the etiology of type 2 diabetes (T2D). While it is unclear whether SHBG may mediate sex differences in glucose control and subsequently, incidence of T2D. Methods: We used observational data from the German popul...

Objective Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and eating out of home (OH) are changing nutrition, particularly among youth in constrained settings. We aimed to assess the role of eating OH intensity on the associations of UPFs and unprocessed/minimally processed foods (UMPFs) with body mass index (BMI) among Albanian youth. Design Cross-sectional. Setti...

Background: The risk of chronic diseases increases markedly with age and after menopause. An increase in bodily iron following menopause could contribute to this phenomenon of increased risk of chronic diseases. We aimed to investigate how various iron biomarkers change with advancing age, according to sex and menopausal status. Methods: We enro...

Background: Aerobic exercise combined with breathing exercise can be an integral part of diabetes mellitus treatment. This single-center, randomized, parallel-group study investigated the effect of the combination of aerobic exercise with slow deep breathing and mindfulness meditation on the glucose and cortisol levels of women with type 2 diabetes...

Background Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is expected to worsen the prognosis of inpatients with heart failure (HF) but the evidence from observational studies is inconsistent. We aimed to compare mortality outcomes and life expectancy among inpatients with HF with or without T2D and explored whether chronic kidney disease (CKD) influenced these association...

Background and aims: Plant-based diets are associated with reduced cardiometabolic risk factors (CRFs) and lower risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS), probably via phytochemicals acting synergistically. However, dietary phytochemical content estimation is challenging; therefore, the dietary phytochemical index (DPI) was proposed as a practical way to...

During the pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), mitigation policies for children have been a topic of considerable uncertainty and debate. Although some children have co-morbidities which increase their risk for severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and complications such as multisystem inflammatory synd...

Introduction Calcium Hydroxylapatite (CaHA) is a common dermal filler used in aesthetic medicine for volumizing and contouring. Understanding mechanisms of actions of CaHA can help improve our understanding of its clinical applications. Methods We performed a systematic review to summarize the skin-regeneration related mechanisms of CaHA. Five bib...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): Swiss National Science Foundation. Background Consuming plant-based diets have been associated with reduced cardiometabolic risk factors (CRFs), which might be partly mediated by their high phytochemical content and the synergistic action of these bioactive compo...

Objectives: To provide a step-by-step, easy-to-understand, practical guide for systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Methods: A multidisciplinary team of researchers with extensive experience in observational studies and systematic review and meta-analysis was established. Previous guidelines in evidence synthesis were consi...

Background: Statin therapy is recommended for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). However, PAD patients with polyvascular (PV) extent remain threatened by an increased residual cardiovascular (CV) risk. Purpose: To investigate the association of prescribed statin therapy and mortality in PAD patients with or without PV extent. Methods: A...

Objective: The aim of the study is to evaluate the cross-sectional and longitudinal association of early natural menopause with changes in cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs). Methods: Postmenopausal women from the Swiss CoLaus study, reporting age at natural menopause (ANM) and having CVRFs measurements (blood lipids, blood pressure, glucose, h...

Objectives: To determine the cardiovascular risk burden rehabilitation discharge, and explore the association between recovery during rehabilitation and CVD-risk profile. Methods: We included adults without CVD history admitted for rehabilitation. We evaluated rehabilitation outcomes on admission and discharge. CVD-risk was assessed by Framingha...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to relocation and reconstruction of health care resources and systems, and to a decrease in healthcare utilization, and this may have affected the treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, and psychosocial well-being of patients with cancer. We aimed to summarize and quantify the evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on t...

Current evidence on COVID-19 prognostic models is inconsistent and clinical applicability remains controversial. We performed a systematic review to summarize and critically appraise the available studies that have developed, assessed and/or validated prognostic models of COVID-19 predicting health outcomes. We searched six bibliographic databases...

Several raw-data processing software for accelerometer-measured physical activity (PA) exist, but whether results agree has not been assessed. We examined the agreement between three different software for raw accelerometer data, and associated their results with cardiovascular risk. A cross-sectional analysis conducted between 2014 and 2017 in 269...

Aims: Optimal endovascular management of intermittent claudication (IC) remains disputed. This systematic review and meta-analysis compares efficacy and safety outcomes for balloon angioplasty (BA), bare-metal stents (BMS), drug-coated balloons (DCB), drug-eluting stents (DES), covered stents, and atherectomy. Methods and results: Electronic dat...

Background: Buckwheat is a commonly cultivated crop with growing evidence that it is beneficial to gastrointestinal (GI) health. This systematic review summarizes the role of buckwheat in modifying GI health outcomes and microbiomes. Methods: Four medical databases and Google Scholar were systematically searched. Clinical trials, observational s...

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic led to relocation and reconstruction of health care resources and systems, and to a decrease in healthcare utilization, and this may have affected the treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, and psychosocial well-being of cancer patients. Objective: To summarize and quantify the evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pa...

Background: Whether maternal iron status during pregnancy is associated with cardiometabolic health in the offspring is poorly known. Objectives: We aimed to assess the associations of maternal iron status during early pregnancy with body fat measures and cardiometabolic risk factors in children aged 10 y. Methods: In a population-based cohort...

Buckwheat (BW) is suggested to have beneficial effects, but evidence on how it affects cardiometabolic health (CMH) is not yet established. We aimed to assess the effects of BW and/or its related bioactive compounds on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk markers in adults. Five databases were searched for eligible studies. Observational prospective s...

Background Levels of N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), a marker of heart failure and cardiovascular risk, are generally higher in women than men. We explored whether iron biomarkers mediate sex differences in NT-proBNP levels. Methods We included 5,343 community-dwelling individuals from the Prevention of Renal and Vascular En...

We aimed to explore longitudinal changes in androgen levels in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) within initial inpatient rehabilitation stay and identify clinical/injury characteristics associated with hormone levels. Linear regression analysis was applied to explore the association between personal/injury characteristics and androgen horm...

Background Antimicrobial resistance of bacterial pathogens is an increasing clinical problem and alternative approaches to antibiotic chemotherapy are needed. One of these approaches is the use of lytic bacterial viruses known as phage therapy. We aimed to assess the efficacy of phage therapy in preclinical animal models of bacterial infection. Me...

Introduction Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is the leading causes of non-ischemic heart failure and premature cardiac deaths in Latin America. Identifying predictive biomarkers of morbidity and progression of Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) is important to deciphering novel pathways and aid in early identification...

Background: Chagas disease (CD) is a neglected tropical disease, endemic in Latin America, but due to migration and environmental changes it has become a global public health issue. Objectives: To assess the global prevalence and disability-adjusted life years due to CD using findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Methods: The...

Background Both genetic background and diet are important determinants of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Understanding gene-diet interactions could help improve CVD prevention and prognosis. We aimed to summarise the evidence on gene-diet interactions and CVD outcomes systematically. Methods We searched MEDLINE ® via Ovid, Embase, PubMed ® , and T...

Background Endovenous stent placement has become a first-line approach to prevent post-thrombotic syndrome in patients with chronic post-thrombotic obstruction (PTO) or non-thrombotic iliac vein lesions (NIVL) if conservative management fails. This study aims to identify factors associated with loss of patency to facilitate patient selection for en...

Background Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy (CCM) is characterized by a unique pathophysiology in which inflammatory, microvascular and neuroendocrine processes coalesce in the development of one of the most severe cardiomyopathies affecting humans. Despite significant advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in this disease, scarce...

Context Predicting the onset of menopause is important for family planning and to ensure prompt intervention in women at risk of developing menopause-related diseases. Objective To summarize risk prediction models of natural menopause onset and their performance. Data Sources and Study Selection Five bibliographic databases were searched up to Ma...

Bariatric surgery is a highly effective obesity treatment resulting in substantial weight loss and improved glucose metabolism. We hereby aimed to summarize available evidence of the effect of the two most common bariatric surgery procedures, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and sleeve gastrectomy (SG), on dynamic measures of β-cell function (BCF)....

Background Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with limitation in physical performance. Results from animal studies report enhancement of physical performance in T2D rodents treated with sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2is). However, in human patients with T2D and established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) or high car...

Not all evidence is equal. Evidence-based public health and medicine emanate from the principle that there is a hierarchy of evidence, with systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMAs) being at the top, as the highest level of evidence. Despite this, it is common in literature to find SRMAs with methodological issues that can distort the results an...

Objective: To evaluate the association of plant-based diet index (PDI) with early onset of natural menopause in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII). Methods: We conducted a prospective study with a mean follow-up time of 20 years among premenopausal women living across the US. Participants of the NHS (n = 121,701)...

Purpose Oat supplementation interventions (OSIs) may have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, dietary background can modulate such effect. This systematic review assesses the effects of OSIs on CVD risk markers among adults, accounting for different dietary backgrounds or control arms. Methods We included randomized...

Background: Early screening is important in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) as they were deemed high-risk for cardiometabolic diseases. Few studies explored changes in cardiometabolic risk profile in the early phase of the injury. Thus, it remains unclear how early the cardiometabolic status deteriorates after injury. Objective: We det...

Meta-analysis, the highest level of evidence, is a statistical analysis that includes a mathematical combination of the results from different studies. Meta-analysis can be a subset of systematic review or the pooling of results from individual patient data (IPD). The number of published systematic reviews and meta-analyses has grown exponentially...

Background: Creatinine is the most widely used test to estimate the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), but muscle mass as key determinant of creatinine next to renal function may confound such estimates. We explored effects of 24-h height-indexed creatinine excretion rate (CER index) on GFR estimated with creatinine (eGFRCr ), muscle mass-independe...

Background Exposure to armed conflict has been associated with negative mental health consequences. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder among migrants exposed to armed conflict. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched online data...

Background The mission of medical schools is a sustainable commitment to orient education, research, and services based on the priorities and expectations of society. The most common complaints of patients from comprehensive health service centers (CHSCs) based on the data from electronic health records were assessed in order to determine primary h...

Context: Menopause has been associated with adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profile, yet it is unclear whether the changes in CVD risk factors differ by reproductive stage independently of underlying aging trajectories. Design: The CoLaus study is a prospective population-based cohort study in Lausanne, Switzerland. Patients: We used...

Physical inactivity in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) has been suggested to be an important determinant of increased cardiometabolic disease (CMD) risk. However, it remains unclear whether physically active SCI individuals as compared to inactive or less active individuals have truly better cardiometabolic risk profile. We aimed to syste...

Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption have increased in the world during the last decades since they are hyper-palatable, cheap and ready-to-consume products. However, uncertainty exists on their impact on health. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating the association of UPF consumption with the all-cause mortality risk. Fiv...

Objective: Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) lower plasma glucose through effects on insulin and glucagon secretion and by decelerating gastric emptying. GLP-1 RAs have many beneficial effects beyond glycemic control, including a protective role on the cardiovascular system. However, underlying mechanisms linking GLP-1 RAs with...

Background: Both genetic background and diet are important determinants of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Understanding gene-diet interactions could help improve CVD prevention and prognosis. We aimed to summarise the evidence on gene-diet interactions and CVD outcomes systematically. Methods: We searched MEDLINE® via Ovid, Embase, PubMed®, and The...

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a life-threatening complication associated with high medical costs. Factor Xa inhibitors have gradually replace approved treatment with intravenous direct thrombin inhibitors despite their off-label indication, because of easier management and favorable economic profile.Whether they are cost-effective remai...

Objectives This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the association of diabetes and glycemic control with myocardial fibrosis (MF). Background MF is associated with an increased risk of heart failure, coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, and death. Diabetes may influence the development of MF, but evidence is inconsistent. Methods W...

Background: Chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCM) is ranked among heart failure etiologies with the highest mortality rates. CCM is characterized by alterations in left ventricular function with a typical and unique pattern of myocardial involvement. Left ventricle longitudinal speckle tracking strain is emerging as an important additive method for...

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia classified as paroxysmal and non-paroxysmal. Non-paroxysmal AF is associated with an increased risk of complications. Diabetes contributes to AF initiation, yet its role in AF maintenance is unclear. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to summarize the evidence regarding the...

Background Diet has been suggested to play a role in determining the age at natural menopause; however, the evidence is inconsistent. Objective We systematically reviewed and evaluated published research about associations between diet and onset of natural menopause (ONM). Methods We searched 6 databases (Medline, Embase, Cochrane, PubMed, Web of...

Background: Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy is a unique form of cardiomyopathy, with a significantly higher mortality risk than other heart failure etiologies. Diastolic dysfunction (DD) plays an important role in the prognosis of CCM; however, the value of serum biomarkers in identifying and stratifying DD has been poorly studied in this context. We...

Health-care workers (HCWs) are at the frontline of response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), being at a higher risk of acquiring the disease and, subsequently, exposing patients and others. Searches of 8 bibliographic databases were performed to systematically review the evidence on the prevalence, risk factors, clinical characteristics, and...

Background Diabetes is a major risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF). However, it remains unclear whether individual AF phenotype and related comorbidities differ between patients who have AF with and without diabetes. This study investigated the association of diabetes with AF phenotype and cardiac and neurological comorbidities in patients wit...

Objective: Sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-is) are antidiabetic drugs that improve glycemic control by limiting urinary glucose reuptake in the proximal tubule. SGLT2-is might suppress atherosclerotic processes and ameliorate the prognosis of patients with diabetes mellitus diagnosed with or at high risk of atherosclerotic cardiova...

Objective To analyze the association of circulating dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S) levels with cardiovascular outcomes in patients with chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCM) diagnosis. Background DHEA-S is among the main endogenous steroid hormones. Some studies have suggested a relevant role of this hormone in infections and the setting of...

Background Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy (CCM) is a unique form of cardiomyopathy compared to other etiologies of heart failure. In CCM, risk prediction based on biomarkers has not been well-studied. We assessed the prognostic value of a biomarker panel to predict a composite outcome (CO), including the need for heart transplantation, use of left v...

Introduction Blood pressure has been suggested as potential factor contributing to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease observed in women experiencing early menopause (<45 years). However, whether the association between early menopause and hypertension is causal remains unclear (1,2). Purpose To evaluate the observational and causal assoc...

Background Diabetes mellitus is a major risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF). However, it remains unclear whether individual AF phenotype and related comorbidities differ between AF patients with and without diabetes. Purpose To investigate the association of diabetes with AF phenotype, cardiac and neurological comorbidities in patients with d...

Introduction Cardiometabolic health has a growing relevance in spinal cord injury (SCI) considering the increasing survival and aging population. We explored longitudinal changes in cardiometabolic risk profile and examined whether injury characteristics could be a non-modifiable risk factor for individuals with SCI in subacute phase of the injury....