Activated immune-inflammatory pathways are associated with long-standing depressive symptoms: Evidence from gene-set enrichment analyses in the Young Finns Study.
We used genome wide expression (GWE) data of circulating blood cells and pathway analysis to investigate the inflammatory and other molecular pathways that may be associated with long-standing depressive symptoms. Participants were 607 women and 316 men (mean age 42 years) from the Young Finns Study who participated in three consecutive study phases in 2001, 2007 and 2012. Using Gene-set enrichment analyses (GSEA) we focused our analyses to pathways (available in MSigDB database) that are likely to affect immunological and inflammatory processes. GSEA were performed for blood cell GWE data in 2012. Depressive symptoms were assessed using a modified 21-item Beck Depression Inventory in each of the three study phases. Participants who scored in the top quartile of depressive symptoms in each of the three measurement points (n = 191) differed from other participants (n = 732) in several gene-set pathways related to inflammatory processes or immune-inflammatory signaling including interleukin (IL-1) pathway, and pathways related to various immuno-inflammatory processes, such as toll-like, the NEF protein, the nuclear factor kB, the kinase AKT and the mature B cell antigen receptor pathway (false discovery rates, FDRs
To evaluate whether confounding by several known or suspected coronary heart disease risk factors are likely to explain the lower coronary heart disease risk among light alcohol drinkers compared with never-drinkers.
A population-based cross-sectional study.
Hypertension, body mass index (BMI), diabetes, depression, sleep disturbances, smoking, physical activity, life satisfaction, psychological distress, trait anxiety, independent and dependent life events, length of working hours, job control, job strain and effort-reward imbalance were compared between never-drinkers and light drinkers (
Little is known about the U-shaped relation between alcohol intake and health beyond findings related to cardiovascular disease. Medically certified sickness absence is a health indicator in which coronary heart disease is only a minor factor. To investigate the relation between alcohol intake and sickness absence, records regarding medically certified sick leaves from all causes were assessed for 4 years (1997-2000) in a cohort of 1,490 male and 4,952 female municipal employees in Finland. Hierarchical Poisson regression, adjusted for self-reported behavioral and biologic risk factors, psychosocial risk factors, and cardiovascular diseases, was used to estimate the rate ratios and their 95% confidence intervals, relating sickness absence to each level of alcohol consumption. For both men and women, a significant curvilinear trend was found between level of average weekly alcohol consumption and sickness absence. The rates of medically certified sickness absence were 1.2-fold higher (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.3) for never, former, and heavy drinkers compared with light drinkers. The U-shaped relation between alcohol intake and health is not likely to be explained by confounding due to psychosocial differences or inclusion of former drinkers in the nondrinkers category. Moderate alcohol consumption also may reduce health problems other than cardiovascular disease.
The aim of the study is to examine the risk of sickness absence in public sector employees with allergic rhinitis or asthma or both conditions combined. This is a prospective cohort study of 48,296 Finnish public sector employees. Data from self-reported rhinitis and asthma were obtained from survey responses given during either the 2000-2002 or 2004 periods. Follow-up data on sickness absences for the public sector employees surveyed were acquired from records kept by the employers. During the follow-up, mean sick leave days per year for respondents were 17.6 days for rhinitis alone, 23.8 days for asthma alone and 24.2 days for both conditions combined. Respondents with neither condition were absent for a mean of 14.5 days annually. The impact of asthma and rhinitis combined on the risk of sick leave days was marginal compared to asthma alone (RR 1.1; 95% CI 1.0-1.3). In the subgroup analysis (those with current asthma or allergy medication), the risk ratio for medically certified sickness absence (>3 days) was 2.0 (95% CI 1.9-2.2) for those with asthma and rhinitis combined. Rhinitis, asthma and both these conditions combined increased the risk of days off work.
To study the allocation of rehabilitation measures provided by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution in relation to the characteristics and health status of rehabilitants.
A register linkage study.
A total of 67,106 full-time local government employees with a minimum of 10-month job contracts in 10 Finnish towns during the period 1994-2002.
Data on the rehabilitation granted between 1994 and 2002, special medication reimbursements for chronic diseases, and disability retirement, were derived from the registers of the Social Insurance Institution as an indicator of chronic morbidity and linked to the employers' records on demographic characteristics and rates of sickness absence.
In comparison with non-rehabilitants, the rate of sickness absence (> 21 days) was 2.2-2.9-fold (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.0-3.0) higher, the odds ratios of special medication reimbursement 1.5-6.1-fold (95% CI 1.3-6.9) higher and disability retirement 3.1-7.5-fold (95% CI 2.7-9.3) higher among rehabilitants. Older women and employees in manual or lower-grade non-manual jobs predominated in the rehabilitation groups. The proportion of temporary employees receiving rehabilitation was low.
Permanently employed older women with an excess burden of health problems predominate in the receipt of rehabilitation provided by the Social Insurance Institution.
To examine antidepressant use before and after the diagnosis of diabetes.
This study was a longitudinal analysis of diabetic and nondiabetic groups selected from a prospective cohort study of 151,618 men and women in Finland (the Finnish Public Sector Study, 1995-2005). We analyzed the use of antidepressants in those 493 individuals who developed type 2 diabetes and their 2,450 matched nondiabetic control subjects for each year during a period covering 4 years before and 4 years after the diagnosis. For comparison, we undertook a corresponding analysis on 748 individuals who developed cancer and their 3,730 matched control subjects.
In multilevel longitudinal models, the odds ratio for antidepressant use in those who developed diabetes was 2.00 (95% CI 1.57-2.55) times greater than that in nondiabetic subjects. The relative difference in antidepressant use between these groups was similar before and after the diabetes diagnosis except for a temporary peak in antidepressant use at the year of the diagnosis (OR 2.66 [95% CI 1.94-3.65]). In incident cancer case subjects, antidepressant use substantially increased after the cancer diagnosis, demonstrating that our analysis was sensitive for detecting long-term changes in antidepressant trajectories when they existed.
Awareness of the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes may temporarily increase the risk of depressive symptoms. Further research is needed to determine whether more prevalent use of antidepressants noted before the diagnosis of diabetes relates to effects of depression, side effects of antidepressant use, or a common causal pathway for depression and diabetes.
Are changes in objective working hour characteristics associated with changes in work-life conflict among hospital employees working shifts? A 7-year follow-up.
To investigate whether changes in objective working hour characteristics are associated with parallel changes in work-life conflict (WLC) among hospital employees.
Survey responses from three waves of the Finnish Public Sector study (2008, 2012 and 2015) were combined with payroll data from 91 days preceding the surveys (n=2 482, 93% women). Time-dependent fixed effects regression models adjusted for marital status, number of children and stressfulness of the life situation were used to investigate whether changes in working hour characteristics were associated with parallel change in WLC. The working hour characteristics were dichotomised with cut-points in less than or greater than 10%?or less than or greater than25%?occurrence) and WLC to frequent versus seldom/none.
Change in proportion of evening and night shifts and weekend work was significantly associated with parallel change in WLC (adjusted OR 2.19, 95%?CI 1.62 to 2.96; OR 1.71, 95%?CI 1.21 to 2.44; OR 1.63, 95%?CI 1.194 to 2.22, respectively). Similarly, increase or decrease in proportion of quick returns (adjusted OR 1.45, 95%?CI 1.10 to 1.89) and long work weeks (adjusted OR 1.26, 95%?CI 1.04 to 1.52) was associated with parallel increase or decrease in WLC. Single days off and very long work weeks showed no association with WLC.
Changes in unsocial working hour characteristics, especially in connection with evening shifts, are consistently associated with parallel changes in WLC.
Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology Turku, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Electronic address: petteri.lankinen@tyks.fi.
Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of disability in working-age patients. The total number of working-age patients undergoing total-knee arthroplasty (TKA) is continuously increasing. The purpose of this study was to identify predictive factors related to general health, health risk behaviors and socioeconomic status influencing the rate of return to work after a TKA.
Overall there were 151,901 patients included in the Finnish Public Sector (FPS) study. The response rate varied between 65 and 73% during the study period. We used Cox proportional hazard models to examine patient-related predictive factors that may influence the rate of return to work after TKA in a cohort of patients (n?=?452; n?=?362 female; mean age 56.4?years). Predictive factors were measured on average 3.6?years before the operation.
Of the patients, 87% returned to work within one year after TKA at a mean of 116 calendar days. In multivariate analysis, patients at sick-leave =30?days during the last year before surgery were 2.2 times (95% confidence interval 1.72-2.92) more likely to return to work compared with those with >30?days of sick-leave. Compared with patients in manual work, those in higher or lower level non-manual work showed a 2.6-fold (1.95-3.52) and 1.5-fold (1.15-1.92) increased probability of returning to work. Age, sex, health risk behaviors, obesity, physical comorbidities, common mental disorders, and other studied health-related factors were not associated with the rate of return to work.
Non-manual job, good self-rated general health and preoperative sick leave =30?days are associated with a higher rate of return to work.
Reduced availability of tobacco outlets is hypothesized to reduce smoking, but longitudinal evidence on this issue is scarce.
To examine whether changes in distance from home to tobacco outlet are associated with changes in smoking behaviors.
The data from 2 prospective cohort studies included geocoded residential addresses, addresses of tobacco outlets, and responses to smoking surveys in 2008 and 2012 (the Finnish Public Sector [FPS] study, n?=?53?755) or 2003 and 2012 (the Health and Social Support [HeSSup] study, n?=?11?924). All participants were smokers or ex-smokers at baseline. We used logistic regression in between-individual analyses and conditional logistic regression in case-crossover design analyses to examine change in walking distance from home to the nearest tobacco outlet as a predictor of quitting smoking in smokers and smoking relapse in ex-smokers. Study-specific estimates were pooled using fixed-effect meta-analysis.
Walking distance from home to the nearest tobacco outlet.
Quitting smoking and smoking relapse as indicated by self-reported current and previous smoking at baseline and follow-up.
Overall, 20?729 men and women (age range 18-75 years) were recruited. Of the 6259 and 2090 baseline current smokers, 1744 (28%) and 818 (39%) quit, and of the 8959 and 3421 baseline ex-smokers, 617 (7%) and 205 (6%) relapsed in the FPS and HeSSup studies, respectively. Among the baseline smokers, a 500-m increase in distance from home to the nearest tobacco outlet was associated with a 16% increase in odds of quitting smoking in the between-individual analysis (pooled odds ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05-1.28) and 57% increase in within-individual analysis (pooled odds ratio, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.32-1.86), after adjusting for changes in self-reported marital and working status, substantial worsening of financial situation, illness in the family, and own health status. Increase in distance to the nearest tobacco outlet was not associated with smoking relapse among the ex-smokers.
These data suggest that increase in distance from home to the nearest tobacco outlet may increase quitting among smokers. No effect of change in distance on relapse in ex-smokers was observed.
To examine the association between work stress and cognitive performance.
Cognitive performance of a total of 99 women (mean age = 47.3 years) working in hospital wards at either the top or bottom quartiles of job strain was assessed using validated tests that measured learning, short-term memory, and speed of memory retrieval.
The high job strain group (n = 43) had lower performance than the low job strain group (n = 56) in learning (P = 0.025), short-term memory (P = 0.027), and speed of memory retrieval (P = 0.003). After controlling for education level, only the difference in speed of memory retrieval remained statistically significant (P = 0.010).
The association found between job strain and speed of memory retrieval might be one important factor explaining the effect of stress on work performance.
