Publications by authors named "Cecilia Albala"

Importance: It remains unclear whether obesity accelerates biological aging, potentially leading to early-onset chronic diseases.

Objective: To investigate the association between long-term obesity and the expression of biochemical aging markers in younger adults.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This multiple-events case-control study, conducted from April 5, 2022, to June 29, 2023, was embedded in the Santiago Longitudinal Study, a prospective Chilean birth cohort of adults aged 28 to 31 years among whom health and nutrition data were collected from September 1992 onward.

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A polygenic score (PGS) for Alzheimer's disease (AD) was derived recently from data on genome-wide significant loci in European ancestry populations. We applied this PGS to populations in 17 European countries and observed a consistent association with the AD risk, age at onset and cerebrospinal fluid levels of AD biomarkers, independently of apolipoprotein E locus (APOE). This PGS was also associated with the AD risk in many other populations of diverse ancestries.

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Over the past 30 years, obesity prevalence has markedly increased globally, including among children. Although genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified over 1,000 genetic loci associated with obesity-related traits in adults, the genetic architecture of childhood obesity is less well characterized. Moreover, most childhood obesity GWASs have been restricted to severely obese children, in relatively small sample sizes, and in primarily European-ancestry populations.

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Unlabelled: Aging is associated with physiological, economic, and psychological changes that can compromise nutritional and functional status.

Aim: To determine the nutritional status of institutionalized older people living in a long-term nursing home "Fundación las Rosas" (FLR), the largest long-stay establishment in Chile, in 2019, and its relationship with functionality.

Methods: Descriptive study of analysis of secondary data in 1646 older adults institutionalized in FLR (60% women).

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Frailty and cardiovascular diseases are increasingly prevalent in aging populations, sharing common pathological mechanisms, such as oxidative stress. The evidence shows that these factors predispose frail individuals to cardiovascular diseases but also increase the risk of thrombosis. Considering this background, this review aims to explore advances regarding the relationship between oxidative stress, platelet alterations, and cardiovascular diseases in frailty, examining the role of reactive oxygen species overproduction in platelet activation and thrombosis.

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Unlabelled: ABASTRACT Background: To study the association between pain and depression, its characteristics and related factors in chilean older adults.

Methods: Cross-sectional analytical study of the National Survey of Dependence in Chilean older adults 2009, with a sample of 4766 people aged 60 years and older. Pain was described using a Likert scale from "no pain" to "very much pain".

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Background: The leading cause of death in older people is cardiovascular diseases. Several studies have found that neck circumference (NC) is a simple anthropometric marker associated with adiposity. The aim of this study is to estimate and validate NC cut-off points as adiposity markers and analyze their association with cardiovascular and chronic metabolic diseases in older people.

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Background: Functional capacity is recognized as a central factor for health in old age and not all studies that seek to clarify the role of social relationships in functional capacity are conclusive. The subject has only been studied in a limited way in Latin America, a region that is aging prematurely, with evidence primarily from developed countries, which have experienced a more gradual aging of their population. This longitudinal study aimed to determine how aspects of social relationships impact the functionality of older Chileans.

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Age-related sleep disorders share common pathways with sarcopenia. Prospective data from Latin American populations are scarce, and the association between sleep disorders and sarcopenia in Chileans remains unknown. Thus, we aimed to study the longitudinal association between sleep disorders and sarcopenia in a cohort study of 1116 community-dwelling Chilean older people ≥60 years old from the ALEXANDROS cohorts.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Conducted on 58 participants aged 70 and older, the study found that frail individuals had higher rates of osteoporosis and depression and demonstrated significantly lower OCR, especially in men and those over 80.
  • * The results suggest that analyzing PBMC may provide a simple, non-invasive method for identifying early signs of frailty in aging populations.
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Background: Although about 10% of the Latin American population is indigenous, ethnic differences in disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) and life expectancy with disability (DLE) are unknown.

Objective: To estimate disability-free life expectancy and disabled life expectancy among Mapuche (the largest indigenous group) and non-indigenous older adults aged 60 years or more in Chile.

Method: Disability was measured following a methodology that combines limitations of daily living, cognitive impairment and dependence previously validated in Chile.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study conducted the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) on sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a sample from Argentina and Chile, involving 539 patients and 854 controls.
  • Combining their findings with data from the European Alzheimer and Dementia Biobank (EADB), researchers identified apolipoprotein E ε4 as a significant genetic risk factor and discovered four new loci linked to AD.
  • The research highlights the shared genetic factors affecting AD risk across different populations, while also noting that a genetic risk score (GRS) showed diminishing effectiveness with increasing Native American ancestry.
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Background: Ethnic and racial differences in life expectancy have been well established in different societies. However, even though an important part of the population of Latin America is Indigenous, there is little knowledge about them.

Objective: Determine if there are ethnic differences in life expectancy at birth and at 60 years in Chile, and if the Mapuche (largest Indigenous ethnic group) have similar life expectancy to other Indigenous peoples.

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Article Synopsis
  • Handgrip strength is a reliable and cost-effective method for assessing muscle strength and is frequently used in epidemiological studies as a health biomarker.
  • It is linked to negative health outcomes, including increased mortality and the risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular issues, respiratory problems, cancer, and dementia.
  • There is limited research on the relationship between handgrip strength and these health outcomes in Chile, prompting a review to consolidate existing scientific evidence for better understanding and potential clinical application.
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Global initiatives call for further understanding of the impact of inequity on aging across underserved populations. Previous research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) presents limitations in assessing combined sources of inequity and outcomes (i.e.

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Growing evidence about the link between cognitive and physical decline suggests the early changes in physical functioning as a potential biomarker for cognitive impairment. Thus, we compared grip-strength trajectories over 12-16 years in three groups classified according to their cognitive status (two stable patterns, normal and impaired cognitive performance, and a declining pattern) in two representative UK and Chilean older adult samples. The samples consisted of 7069 UK (ELSA) and 1363 Chilean participants (ALEXANDROS).

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Background: The increasing aging of the population with the consequent increase of age-associated cognitive disorders pose the challenge of controlling its preventable risk factors, among which vitamin D deficit is a putative factor. Thus, our objective is to explore the association between vitamin D and cognitive performance in a cohort study of community-dwelling Chilean older people. Material and Methods: Cohort study of 955 (69.

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In Chile, depressive symptoms are highly prevalent among Chilean older adults, and research that examines the factors associated with them is scarce. This study aimed to determine if subjective assessments of quality of life are associated with positive screen for depressive symptoms among older adults enrolled in primary care in Chile. The participants of the study were people aged 70 years or more enrolled in primary care centers in three Chilean cities.

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In the context of accelerated aging of the population worldwide, frailty has emerged as one of the main risk factors that can lead to loss of self-sufficiency in older people. This syndrome is defined as a reduced state of physiological reserve and functional capacity. The main diagnostic tools for frailty are based on scales that show deficits compared to their clinical application, such as the Fried frailty phenotype, among others.

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Background: Frailty has emerged as one of the main geriatric syndromes to be prevented in order to improve quality of health and life in the elderly. In this sense, the characterization of this syndrome through reliable and feasible diagnostic tools for clinical use, such as the Frail Trait Scale 5 (FTS-5) and Frail Trait Scale 3 (FTS-3), represents the basis for this objective. Objectives: To characterize the frailty syndrome in a population of older adults using FTS-5, FTS-3, and Fried phenotype (FP) as frailty diagnostic tools.

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We aimed to examine the degree to which social participation is associated with mortality risk in older adults in Chile. We used the Chilean National Survey on Elderly Dependency, which is linked to vital statistics, in order to obtain death records. Four proportional risk regression models were estimated.

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Background: Depression and dependence have a great impact on the quality of life of older people.

Aim: To validate the SF-12 (short-form) health related quality of care questionnaire (HRQOL) as an alternative of the SF-36 to estimate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and its association with depression and dependence in Chilean older people living in the community.

Material And Methods: The questionnaire was answered by 4,124 Chilean older people (61% women).

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Background: Sarcopenia is an important risk factor for disability and dependency at old age. The prevalence of sarcopenia among the Chilean older population is high.

Objective: To estimate life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and unhealthy life expectancy among sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic older adults from Santiago, Chile.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines the relationship between adipokines (hormones produced by fat tissue) and body fat accumulation during adolescence and young adulthood, focusing on a Hispanic/Latino population.
  • Using structural equation modeling on data from 537 participants, significant associations were found, such as increased body fat in adolescence correlating with higher leptin levels and lower adiponectin levels six years later.
  • The findings highlight the crucial role of late adolescence in understanding obesity development and suggest that these relationships may differ based on insulin resistance status.
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