Environmental Public Health Commons^™

Two Boundaries Separate Borrelia Burgdorferi Populations In North America, Gabriele Margos, Jean I. Tsao, Santiago Castillo-Ramirez, Yvette A. Girard, Anne G. Hoen

Dartmouth Scholarship

Understanding the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for implementing effective control measures. For this, it is important to obtain information on the contemporary population structure of a disease agent and to infer the evolutionary processes that may have shaped it. Here, we investigate on a continental scale the population structure of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis (LB), a tick-borne disease, in North America. We test the hypothesis that the observed d population structure is congruent with recent population expansions and that these were preceded by bottlenecks mostly likely caused by the near extirpation in the 1900s …

Fibrinogen, Copd And Mortality In A Nationally Representative U.S. Cohort, David M. Mannino, Deepa Valvi, Hana Mullerova, Ruth Tal-Singer

David M. Mannino

BACKGROUND:

Fibrinogen is a marker of systemic inflammation and may represent an important biomarker for the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

METHODS:

We used baseline data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) and follow-up mortality data to determine the relation between fibrinogen levels and COPD and to examine how fibrinogen levels at baseline affected long-term outcomes. Elevated fibrinogen was defined as the upper 10% of the fibrinogen level distribution.

RESULTS:

Our study sample included 8,507 subjects, including 245 with Stage 3 or 4 COPD and 826 with Stage 2 COPD. Then, 3,290 of …

Fibrinogen, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Copd) And Outcomes In Two United States Cohorts, Deepa Valvi, David M. Mannino, Hana Mullerova, Ruth Tal-Singer

David M. Mannino

Background

Fibrinogen is a marker of systemic inflammation and may be important in the pathogenesis and progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Methods

We used baseline data from Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities and Cardiovascular Health Studies to determine the relation between fibrinogen levels and COPD and to examine how fibrinogen levels at baseline affected outcomes of death, development of COPD, lung function decline, and COPD-hospitalizations.

Results

Our study sample included 20,192 subjects, of whom 2995 died during the follow-up period. The mean fibrinogen level was 307.6 mg/dL and 10% of the sample had levels >393.0 mg/dL. Subjects with Stage …