Disease risk tagged posts

Population health study: Alcohol Consumption Increases the Risks of over 60 Diseases

Even moderate drinking linked to a decline in brain health. Credit: Shutterstock

Alcohol consumption increases the risks of over 60 diseases in Chinese men, including many diseases not previously linked to alcohol, according to a new study by researchers from Oxford Population Health and Peking University, published in Nature Medicine.

Alcohol consumption is estimated to be responsible for about 3 million deaths worldwide each year, and it is increasing in many low- and middle-income countries such as China. The harmful effects of heavy drinking for certain diseases (such as liver cirrhosis, stroke and several types of cancer) are well known, but very few studies have systematically assessed the impact of alcohol use on an extensive range of diseases within the same population.

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Blood-based Metabolic Signature Outperforms Standard Method for Predicting Diet, Disease Risk

Food blood vial collage
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The study found that machine learning techniques improved diet prediction by 10-20%. When it comes to studying food and diet, it’s difficult to know what people are eating — let alone their risk of disease caused by what they eat.

Doctors and researchers usually ask people to fill out a long-from food frequency questionnaire that estimates caloric intake, food groups and nutrients. That relies on a person’s memory and may not provide the most accurate picture.

However, a research team led by a Michigan Medicine cardiologist have found a method using molecular profiling and machine learning to develop blood-based dietary signatures that more accurately predict both diet and the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes...

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