Cohort Profile: The Ontario Health Study (OHS)
OHS’s cohort profile outlines its research platform’s history and value for the broader scientific community. OHS follows 225,000 over their lifetime, actively and passively, making de-identified genomic, environmental, lifestyle, and electronic health data available to cancer and chronic disease researchers.
Negative Association of Smoking History With Clinically Manifest Cardiac Sarcoidosis: A Case-Control Study
Researchers aimed to explore whether smoking was associated with a specific sarcoidosis phenotype, primarily in Caucasian patients with clinically manifest cardiac sarcoidosis (CS). Ontario Health Study participants’ data were used as controls, while the cases came from the Cardiac Sarcoidosis Multi-Center Prospective Cohort Study. They found a strong association between smoking history and clinically manifest CS, but more research is required to understand whether these associations have therapeutic potential.
Reduced Cognitive Assessment Scores Among Individuals With Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Detected Vascular Brain Injury
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.