Publications

These publications are examples of research made possible with data from CanPath and its regional cohorts.

2020

Portable X-ray Fluorescence of Zinc Applied to Human Toenail Clippings

Authors: David E.B.Fleming, Samantha L. Crook, Colby T. Evans, Michel N. Nader, Manuel Atia, Jason M. T. Hicks, Ellen Sweeney, Christopher R. McFarlane, Jong Sung Kim, Erin Keltie, Anil Adisesh

The purpose of this study was to see if it was feasible to measure the zinc levels in the fingernails of people. They used an x-ray fluorescence to measure how much zinc was present in the nails. It was found that the latter was very sensitive at detecting zinc in the nail and would be able to measure fluctuating levels of zinc as time went on.

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2020

Burden of multimorbidity and polypharmacy among cancer survivors: a population-based nested case–control study

Authors: Melanie Keats, Yunsong Cui, Vanessa DeClerq, Scott Grandy, Ellen Sweeney, Trevor Dummer

The purpose of this study was to investigate if adult cancer survivors showed more than one comorbidity while taking medications. The article found multimorbities in 53% of cancer survivors. Those on multiple medications showed much higher results.

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2020

Association between lifestyle behaviors and frailty in Atlantic Canadian males and females

Authors: Vanessa DeClerq, Todd Duhamel, Olga Teou, Scott Kehler

The aim of this study was to identify lifestyle factors in males and females that are associated with a degree of frailty in a Canadian cohort. Higher frailty was more prevalent among participants with unhealthy lifestyle behaviors related to smoking, alcohol consumption, sedentary and physical activity level, diet, and sleep.

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2020

Reduced Cognitive Assessment Scores Among Individuals With Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Detected Vascular Brain Injury

Authors: Sonia S. Anand, Matthias G. Friedrich, Dipika Desai, Karleen M. Schulze, Philip Awadalla, David Busseuil, Trevor J.B. Dummer, Sébastien Jacquemont, Alexander Dick, David Kelton, Anish Kirpalani, Scott A. Lear, Jonathan Leipsic, Michael D. Noseworthy, Louise Parker, Grace Parraga, Paul Poirier, Paula Robson, Jean-Claude Tardif, Koon Teo, Jennifer Vena, Salim Yusuf, Alan R. Moody, Sandra E. Black, Eric E. Smith,

This study investigated if scores on a cognitive screen were lower in individuals with higher cardiovascular risk, and those with covert vascular brain injury. Among a middle-aged community-dwelling population, scores on a cognitive screen were lower in individuals with higher cardiovascular risk factors or MRI vascular brain injury. Much of the population attributable risk of low cognitive scores can be attributed to lower educational attainment, higher cardiovascular risk factors, and MRI vascular brain injury.

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2020

The association between physical activity and self-rated health in Atlantic Canadians

The population of Atlantic Canada is aging rapidly and has among the highest rates of chronic disease in the country. This cross-sectional study drew data from Atlantic PATH to investigate the association between physical activity and self-rated health among adults in this population. The results suggest that physical activity may help to improve perceived health status of individuals with one or more chronic conditions. The findings support literature suggesting that physical activity can be beneficial for adults as they age with chronic disease.

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2019

Diet Quality among Cancer Survivors and Participants without Cancer: A Population-Based, Cross-Sectional Study in the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health Project

This study investigated the diet quality of cancer survivors relative to participants without cancer, overall and by cancer site and time from diagnosis. It found that there was considerable room for dietary improvement regardless of cancer status, highlighting the need for dietary interventions, especially among cancer survivors, who are at higher risk for secondary health problems.

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2019

Anxiety and depression symptoms in adult males in Atlantic Canada with or without a lifetime history of prostate cancer

Authors: G Illie, Ellen Sweeney, R Rutledge

In this study based on prostate cancer and to examine the assoication between depression and anxiety. They looked at sample size of 6585 participants and found surivors of PCa had 2.45 or 2.05 statistically significant higher odds of screening positive for anxiety/depression

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2019

Cardiovascular risk scoring and magnetic resonance imaging detected subclinical cerebrovascular disease

Authors: Sonia S Anand, Jack V Tu, Dipika Desai, Phillip Awadalla, Paula Robson, Sébastien Jacquemont, Trevor Dummer, Nhu Le, Louise Parker, Paul Poirier, Koon Teo, Scott A Lear, Salim Yusuf, Jean-Claude Tardif, Francois Marcotte, David Busseuil, Jean-Pierre Després, Sandra E Black, Anish Kirpalani, Grace Parraga, Michael D Noseworthy, Alexander Dick, Jonathan Leipsic, David Kelton, Jennifer Vena, Melissa Thomas, Karleen M Schulze, Eric Larose, Alan R Moody, Eric E Smith, Matthias G Friedrich on behalf of the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds Cohort

This study aimed to determine if simple cardiac risk scores are associated with certain MRI-deected subclinical cerebrovascular diseases. They found that the risk scores are significantly related with carotid wall volume, carotid intraplaque haemorrhage, and silent brain infarction amongst adults without known clinical cardiovascular disease.

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2019

The Relationship between Anthropometric Measures and Cardiometabolic Health in Shift Work: Findings from the Atlantic PATH Cohort Study

Authors: Ellen Sweeney, Zhijie Yu, Trevor Dummer, Yunsong Cui, Vanessa DeClerq, Cynthia Forbes, Scott Grandy, Melanie Keats, Louise Parker, Anil Adisesh

This article was written to evaluate the relationship between anthropomeric measures and cardiometabolic health in shift workers compared to non-shift workers. They looked at 4155 shift workers and 8258 non-shift workers. There was a slight risk of CVD, obesity, and diabetes among shift workers. It also shown that shift workers were 17% more likely to be obese and 27% more likely to have diabetes.

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2019

Harmonization of the Health and Risk Factor Questionnaire data of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project: a descriptive analysis

Authors: Isabel Fortier, Nataliya Dragieva, Matilda Saliba, Camille Craig, Paula J. Robson

This paper describes how data is harmonized the health and risk factor questionnare and provides an overview of information required to use the core data that has been created. The reason for the harmonization is to have a unique data set including data on health and risk factors from over 307000 Canadians.

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