Genetically determined body mass index is associated with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in polygenic and Mendelian randomization analyses.

Obesity has been associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but the evidence is inconclusive. We examined the association between genetically determined adiposity and four common NHL subtypes: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), follicular lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and marginal zone lymphoma, using eight genome-wide association studies of European ancestry (N = 10,629 cases, 9505 controls) and constructing polygenic scores for body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI (WHRadjBMI). Higher genetically determined BMI was associated with an increased risk of DLBCL [odds ratio (OR) per standard deviation (SD) = 1.

Redefining ALS: Large-scale proteomic profiling reveals a prolonged pre-diagnostic phase with immune, muscular, metabolic, and brain involvement.

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder with a largely unknown duration and pathophysiology of the pre-diagnostic phase, especially for the common non-monogenic form.

Methods: We leveraged the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort with up to 30 years of follow-up to identify incident ALS cases across five European countries. Pre-diagnostic plasma samples from initially healthy participants underwent high-throughput proteomic profiling (7,285 protein markers, SomaScan).

Multi-Cohort High-Dimensional Proteomics Reveals Early Risk Markers for Lymphoid Cancer Subtypes.

This study aims to investigate the early stages of lymphoid malignancy pathogenesis and identify novel pre-diagnostic proteomic markers for lymphoma. Using the SomaScan-7K platform, we analyzed 6,412 unique plasma proteins in a case-cohort study nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort, comprising 4,565 participants (484 incident lymphoid malignancy cases, median follow-up 9 years). We identified over 500 unique protein-lymphoid malignancy associations.

Traffic-related micro- and nanoplastics in air increase total and differential white blood cell counts in healthy young adults.

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) are abundant in the environment, with traffic-related tyre-wear contributing substantially to atmospheric levels. MNPs have been detected in human tissues, however, their health effects remain poorly known. Therefore, we assessed immunological and respiratory health changes associated with short-term exposure to traffic-related MNPs in healthy, young adults.

Non-dietary personal pesticide exposure using silicone wristbands across 10 European countries.

Individuals are exposed to pesticides via dietary and non-dietary exposure routes. There is a growing need for aggregated exposure estimates across occupationally and non-occupationally exposed populations. Exposure to current-use and legacy pesticides was studied using silicone wristbands worn by farmers, residents living close to treated fields (neighbors), and the general population (consumers), in total, 641 participants across 10 European countries.

The link between prenatal exposure to a chemical mixture, cord blood hormones, and birth weight: an epidemiologic study.

Prenatal chemical exposure has frequently been associated with fetal growth, although the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to explore the potential mediating role of hormones in the association between prenatal chemical mixture exposure and birth weight. We used data of 432 newborns from two Flemish birth cohorts.

The Lancet Countdown on health and plastics.

Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health. Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1·5 trillion annually. These impacts fall disproportionately upon low-income and at-risk populations.

Large-scale plasma proteomics uncovers preclinical molecular signatures of Parkinson's disease and overlap with other neurodegenerative disorders.

Parkinson's disease (PD) remains incurable, with a long preclinical phase currently undetectable by existing methods. In the largest proteomic study in neurodegenerative diseases to date, we analyzed blood samples from ~74,000 individuals across discovery and validation cohorts. In the EPIC4PD discovery case-cohort, large-scale profiling of 7,285 proteins (SomaScan-7K) in 4,538 initially unaffected participants (574 incident cases) identified 17 proteins that predict PD up to 28 years before diagnosis.

A computational framework for agent-based assessment of multiple environmental exposures.

Background: Agent-based assessment of long-term personal exposure to environmental factors accounts for spatio-temporal variation in exposures along daily activity tracks of individuals. Application up to nationwide study populations requires integration of large data sets on environmental factors, personal behavior, and socio-economic status, as well as propagating uncertainties in these inputs to personal exposure values.

Objective: To develop and illustrate a methodology and software framework for agent-based personal exposure assessment for large cohorts, including uncertainty assessment.

Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer globally, with most deaths caused by metastatic disease, often following long periods of clinical dormancy. Understanding the mechanisms that disrupt the quiescence of dormant disseminated cancer cells (DCCs) is crucial for addressing metastatic progression. Infections caused by respiratory viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 trigger both local and systemic inflammation.

GPS tracking methods for spatiotemporal air pollution exposure assessment: comparison and challenges in study implementation.

Background: Epidemiological studies investigating long-term health effects of air pollution typically only consider the residential locations of the participants, thereby ignoring the space-time activity patterns that likely influence total exposure. This paper, part of a study in which residential-only and mobility-integrated exposures were compared in two tracking campaigns, reflects on GPS device choice, privacy, and recruitment strategy.

Methods: Tracking campaigns were conducted in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Pre-Harvest Aflatoxin Contamination in Crops and Climate Change Factors: A European Overview.

Aflatoxin (AF) contamination of crops during the pre-harvest period is a significant global concern for food and feed safety (FFS). In Europe, climate change presents a growing threat to agricultural products by increasing the risk of AF contamination. This umbrella review evaluates the scope and quality of pre-harvest data on climate-related AF contamination in Europe, addressing key questions: What insights do researchers provide on the relationship between climate change and pre-harvest AF contamination, and what data are lacking? Which crops are the focus of current research, and where in Europe are these studies concentrated? How is the data presented, and is it standardized? We conducted an umbrella literature review, extracting relevant studies from PubMed and Scopus up to 14 October 2024.

Associations of proteomic age with mortality and incident chronic diseases in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

Assessment of biological ageing using proteomic clocks may enhance risk prediction and elucidate the molecular links between ageing and chronic diseases. Within a pre-diagnostic cohort of 17,473 Europeans with up to 28 years of follow-up, we examined associations of plasma SomaScan-based proteomic clocks, including organ-specific clocks, with 24 incident chronic diseases, all-cause mortality, and lifestyle risk factors. Global proteomic age gap (a composite biological age acceleration score combining previously published clocks) showed the strongest positive association of all tested clocks with all-cause mortality.

External exposome and incident asthma across the life course in 14 European cohorts: a prospective analysis within the EXPANSE project.

Background: The joint impact of exposure to multiple urban environmental factors on asthma remains unclear.

Methods: We analysed data from 14 European cohorts to assess the impact of the urban exposome on asthma incidence across the life course. We linked three external exposome domains (air pollution, built environment, ambient temperature) to the participants' home addresses at baseline.

Overview of historical formaldehyde occupational exposure in China.

Objectives: Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen related to leukemia and nasopharyngeal cancer. As China is the world's largest producer and consumer of formaldehyde, occupational exposure to formaldehyde may pose potential health risks to workers. We aimed to describe occupational exposure to formaldehyde over time in China.

Temporal change of outdoor RF-EMF levels in four European countries: a microenvironmental measurement study.

Introduction: Over the past two decades, the amount of transmitted mobile data has increased rapidly. It is unknown whether the implementation of the new technologies enabling this has resulted in changes of outdoor radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) exposure. Therefore, microenvironmental measurements were used to investigate temporal trends in RF-EMF exposure between 2016 and 2023, in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain, following a similar protocol across campaigns.

Exposure-response functions of the correlated environmental exposures green space, noise, and air pollution for quantifying mortality burden in health impact assessment.

Objective: Environmental health impact assessments (HIA)on green space, air pollution (fine particulate matter (PM) or nitrogen dioxide (NO)), and noise use exposure-response functions (ERF) based on single-exposure models from epidemiological studies, not accounting for potential confounding by other commonly correlated exposures. We assessed differences in ERFs between single- and multi-exposure models for calculation of joint health impacts in HIA.

Methods: We systematically searched cohort studies that reported both single- and multi-exposure models for associations of long-term exposure to any combination of the following exposures green space, PM, NO, and noise, with all-cause mortality.

Night Shift Work and Risk of Melanoma: A Prospective Cohort Study among 59,384 Female Nurses in the Netherlands.

Background: Night shift work may be a risk factor for melanoma, potentially due to suppressed melatonin and decreased vitamin D levels. We examine the potential association between night shift work and melanoma risk using detailed, lifetime information on night shift work in a large cohort of Dutch nurses.

Methods: We used questionnaire data from the Nightingale Study obtained from 59,384 (former) female nurses ages 19 to 65 years (median: 48.

Mobile monitoring of air pollution - a position paper on use cases, good practices, challenges, and opportunities.

Mobile monitoring has proven to be a very efficient tool to measure and feed into models of air pollution as it complements fixed air quality monitoring networks by adding spatiotemporal resolution. This paper explores best practices, opportunities and challenges related to mobile monitoring of air pollutants, focusing on three key application areas, namely source-, exposure-, and health-related use cases. Use cases are linked to users, ensuring mobile monitoring is effectively tailored to diverse research and policy needs.

OPERAS decision support system versus manual job coding: a quantitative analysis on coding time and inter-coder reliability.

Objectives: The manual coding of job descriptions is time-consuming, expensive and requires expert knowledge. Decision support systems (DSS) provide a valuable alternative by offering automated suggestions that support decision-making, improving efficiency while allowing manual corrections to ensure reliability. However, this claim has not been proven with expert coders.

Detailed assessment of night shift work aspects and potential mediators of its health effects: the contribution of field studies.

Night shift work has been associated with adverse health outcomes, but inconsistencies in epidemiological findings reveal gaps in understanding the mechanisms involved. Beyond shift schedules (e.g.

Air pollution and anti-Müllerian hormone: the Doetinchem Cohort Study.

Emerging epidemiologic studies have investigated the relationship between exposure to air pollutants and anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), a biomarker for ovarian reserve. However, findings remain inconclusive, and there is a lack of longitudinal studies with repeated AMH measurements, which could better characterize the impact of air pollutants on ovarian reserve across the lifespan. In 2574 women with a mean baseline age of 37.

A Europe-wide characterization of the external exposome: A spatio-temporal analysis.

Background: Harmonised data on external environmental exposures are essential for multi-cohort exposome studies. This paper describes the development of fine-spatial resolution models and resulting exposure maps for 33 major exposome factors -including physical-chemical, built, social, and food environments-across Europe from 2000 to 2020, and examines their spatial and temporal interrelations.

Methods: New fine spatial resolution Europe-wide models were developed for annual/monthly average air pollution, daily temperature, and annual-average road-traffic noise, combined with post-processing of existing data on green, blue, and grey spaces (imperviousness), walkability, light-at-night, and urbanicity.

Comparison of air pollution mortality effect estimates using different long-term exposure assessment modelling methods.

Introduction: Epidemiological studies have used different approaches to assess long-term exposure to ambient air pollution. Little is known about how different exposure models affect health effect estimates in these studies. The aim of this study was to compare air pollution mortality effect estimates in an administrative cohort in the Netherlands based on different exposure assessment methods for black carbon (BC), nitrogen dioxide (NO), ultrafine particles (UFP), and particulate matter <2.

Air pollution, greenspace, and metabolic syndrome in older Czech and Swiss populations.

Background: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) has increased rapidly, with considerable variation between European countries. The study examined the relationship between air pollutants, greenspace, and MetS and its components in the Czech and Swiss populations.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from the Czech Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial Factors in Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) (n = 4,931) and the Swiss cohort Study on Air Pollution and Lung and Heart Diseases in Adults (SAPALDIA) (n = 4,422) cohorts included participants aged 44-73 years.