North Europeans Research Articles

Frequency of HLA-A*02:01 in the Brazilian population and its impact on uveal melanoma systemic treatment.

Uveal melanoma is a rare malignancy originating from extracutaneous melanocytes on the uveal layer of the eyes. The incidence varies depending on the ethnic and racial global distribution, as uveal melanoma is more frequently diagnosed in non-Hispanic White subjects when compared with Hispanic, Asian, or Black individuals. Despite all the local effective management of uveal melanoma, roughly 50% of the cases will develop distant metastases. For these cases, the historical median overall survival is around 12 months. Recently, tebentafusp became the first therapy to receive Food and Drug Administration approval following a phase 3 trial demonstrating a continued long-term benefit for overall survival among adult HLA-A*02:01-positive patients with previously untreated metastatic uveal melanoma. Since 2021, high-resolution sequence-based HLA typing has been considered the gold standard for determining HLA alleles and haplotypes for the Brazilian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (REDOME) donors. To depict the HLA-A*02:01-positivity in Brazilian individuals, the REDOME database was queried out for the donors included from 2021 to 2023 and tested for HLA in high-resolution platforms. A total of 203, 44 donors were included and the frequency of the HLA-A*02:01 was 21.01%, much lower compared to the frequency in North Americans and Europeans (around 45%). Despite tebentafusp has demonstrated promising results in the treatment of uveal melanoma, the number of patients to benefit from this new approach can strongly vary by ethnic and racial issues. New strategies for the systemic treatment of advanced uveal melanoma have to be developed and tested as this disease still represents an unmet medical need.

Introducing the Euro-Invasion Conflict Database 1513–1901

Abstract We introduce a comprehensive new dataset of conflicts, in chronological order, between the Indigenous Peoples of North America and Europeans seeking to colonize what is now the Continental United States. These data, covering 1,375 conflicts, were originally compiled as a book in 2007 by Michael L. Nunnally, a self-taught historian with a talent for careful data collection and analysis. A research team within the Rights Lab (University of Nottingham, U.K.), drew upon Nunnally’s American Indian Wars to code each recorded conflict (battle, skirmish, raid, massacre, etc.) along with other relevant information. The conflicts were then further researched by the Rights Lab team to add any missing information, resolve ambiguities or questions, and to find common conflict patterns through these centuries. The database holds thirty possible variables for each conflict. An example of one such variable is “genocidal massacre,” following the work of historian Benjamin Madley. Other variables include specifying and/or clarifying the identity of all participants; introducing, as often as possible, the exact or approximate GPS coordinates for each conflict; and noting who were the initiators of each conflict. The full Codebook is an Appendix to this article. To our knowledge, the database we are presenting is unique. We offer this dataset to scholars in the hope that it will allow for a more nuanced and deeper consideration of the history of the European invasion of North America over a four-hundred-year period.

Discourse about national parks on social media: Insights from Twitter

Engagement with natural areas is evident in a range of discourses including on social media. Expanding on more locally focused research, we examine the potential of listening into Twitter to provide insights for national parks including who tweets, about which parks and about what, using a quantitative (culturomics) analysis approach. In six months, more than two million tweets were sent about ‘national parks’, and 264 national parks had more than 100 tweets. Most of the tweets were about USA national parks (62.5%) and most were sent by North Americans (59.4%) or Europeans (18.0%). Those tweeting often referred to specific events, landscapes, tourism and/or management in the tweets, and often tweeted about their domestic national parks. The relative popularity of national parks on Twitter was similar to relative visitation. Therefore, Twitter provided insights for assessing some types of public engagement covering hundreds of national parks, but limitations include missing voices, languages and places, as well as volatiltiy in platforms ongoing challenges for research and monitoring using social media.

Review: Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico, by Monica Bravo

Review: <i>Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico</i>, by Monica Bravo

Loneliness and Social Networks in Europe

The paper analyses social causes of loneliness in Europe using cross-national data from the 2017 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module “Social Networks and Social Resources” from 13 countries categorised as Northern Europe, Continental Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe. The paper aims to examine loneliness with regard to three specific groups of predictors, related to network, sociocultural and sociostructural aspects. The results suggest that sociability patterns and personal networks are the most important predictors of loneliness. While the frequency of contacts with family members and close friends and the overall number of contacts showed significance, loneliness was primarily related to the quality of personal relationships. Considering sociocultural factors, the obtained findings showed that social trust is consistently associated with lower levels of loneliness. Furthermore, people from Continental Europe were, in general, less lonely than North and East Europeans. Age was an important factor here as respondents from younger age groups were lonelier in Nordic countries than in the other two blocs of countries, while older respondents were lonelier in Central and East European countries. Finally, sociostructural indicators in general showed less predictive value compared to sociability patterns and sociocultural variables. However, when it came to socioeconomic exclusion, this aspect showed a stronger connection with loneliness for the individuals from the Nordic group of countries. The findings of this paper contribute to the vibrant field of contemporary scholarship on loneliness with a fresh perspective based on comparing three large blocs of European countries and an integrated approach to various predictors of loneliness.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme polymorphisms AND Alzheimer's disease susceptibility: An updated meta-analysis.

Many studies among different ethnic populations suggested that angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) gene polymorphisms were associated with susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the results remained inconclusive. In the present meta-analysis, we aimed to clarify the effect of ACE polymorphisms on AD risk using all available relevant data. Systemic literature searches were performed using PubMed, Embase, Alzgene and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Relevant data were abstracted according to predefined criteria. Totally, 82 independent cohorts from 65 studies were included, focusing on five candidate polymorphisms. For rs1799752 polymorphism, in overall analyses, the insertion (I) allele conferred increased risk to AD compared to the deletion (D) allele (I vs. D: OR = 1.091, 95% CI = 1.007-1.181, p = 0.032); while the I carriers showed increased AD susceptibility compared with the D homozygotes (II + ID vs. DD: OR = 1.131, 95% CI = 1.008-1.270, p = 0.036). However, none of the positive results passed FDR adjustment. In subgroup analysis restricted to late-onset individuals, the associations between rs1799752 polymorphism and AD risk were identified using allelic comparison (OR = 1.154, 95% CI = 1.028-1.295, p = 0.015, FDR = 0.020), homozygotes comparison, dominant model and recessive model (II vs. ID + DD: OR = 1.272, 95% CI = 1.120-1.444, p < 0.001, FDR < 0.001). Nevertheless, no significant association could be revealed after excluding studies not in accordance with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). In North Europeans, but not in East Asians, the I allele demonstrated increased AD susceptibility compared to the D allele (OR = 1.096, 95% CI = 1.021-1.178, p = 0.012, FDR = 0.039). After excluding HWE-deviated cohorts, significant associations were also revealed under homozygotes comparison, additive model (ID vs. DD: OR = 1.266, 95% CI = 1.045-1.534, p = 0.016, FDR = 0.024) and dominant model (II + ID vs. DD: OR = 1.197, 95% CI = 1.062-1.350, p = 0.003, FDR = 0.018) in North Europeans. With regard to rs1800764 polymorphism, significant associations were identified particularly in subgroup of European descent under allelic comparison (T vs. C: OR = 1.063, 95% CI = 1.008-1.120, p = 0.023, FDR = 0.046), additive model and dominant model (TT + TC vs. CC: OR = 1.116, 95% CI = 1.018-1.222, p = 0.019, FDR = 0.046). But after excluding studies not satisfying HWE, all these associations disappeared. No significant associations were detected for rs4343, rs4291 and rs4309 polymorphisms in any genetic model. Our results suggested the significant but modest associations between rs1799752 polymorphism and risk to AD in North Europeans. While rs4343, rs4291 and rs4309 polymorphisms are unlikely to be major factors in AD development in our research.

Cardiovascular events in adult polymyositis and dermatomyositis: a meta-analysis of observational studies.

We aimed to review whether PM and DM patients have an increased cardiovascular (CV) risk, including ischaemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) and venous thromboembolism. We searched PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane database for relevant studies from inception to February 2021. Twenty-two studies comprising 25 433 patients were included. With PM/DM vs general populations, the risk was significantly increased for CV events [relative risk (RR) = 2.37, 95% CI: 1.86, 3.02]. The RR of CV events for males with PM/DM was higher than for females (RR = 1.43; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.74). PM/DM patients followed for one to five years had a significantly higher CV risk than those followed for five to ten years (RR = 3.51, 95% CI: 1.95, 6.32). The risk was increased for North Americans (RR = 4.28, 95% CI: 2.57, 7.11), Europeans (RR = 2.29, 95% CI: 1.58, 3.31) and Asians (RR = 2.03, 95% CI: 1.41, 2.90). Our meta-analysis found that the elevated CV event risk was related to PM (RR = 2.35, 95% CI: 1.51, 3.66) and DM (RR = 2.55, 95% CI: 1.66, 3.93). Subgroup analyses showed that the risk was significantly increased for IHD (RR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.40, 2.21), CVA morbidity (RR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.67) and ischaemic stroke (IS) (RR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.26, 1.73), with no statistically significant increased risk of haemorrhagic stroke mortality (RR = 1.43, 95% CI: 0.92, 2.21). The CV event risk was increased for venous thromboembolism (RR = 4.60, 95% CI: 3.17, 6.66), deep venous thrombosis (RR = 5.53, 95% CI: 3.25, 9.39) and pulmonary embolism (RR = 5.26, 95% CI: 2.62, 10.55). This meta-analysis found that PM/DM patients had a ∼2.37 times increased CV risk, particularly males diagnosed in the previous five years. PM/DM may be an independent risk factor for developing IHD, IS, deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.

Toward a Post-Apocalyptic Rule of Law

This paper considers how science fiction, and the subgenres of speculative historicism and futurism in particular, might open legal discourse to hitherto unseen and potentially instructive perspectives. It begins with the proposition that recent historical events of global significance such as the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic of 2020, and the extreme weather events of 2021, were widely predicted and foreseen in the media by way of political reporting as much as popular social and natural science reporting in the years and decades prior. The same tropes were also present in the plotlines of popular literature, television, and film during that period. The central argument of the paper is that before media pundits and policy-makers expressed their surprise at the fragility of the Rule of Law in the “unprecedented” ascent of Trump, the lethal capacity and transmissibility of a “novel” coronavirus, and the “sudden” arrival of climate change in the daily lives of North Americans and Europeans, the spectre of these menaces had already penetrated our collective conscious in a way that ought to have changed outcomes. Neil Postman’s conceptualization of the present epoch as “Technopoly” is a means of explaining how, despite ample warnings, we were not ready for much. Technopoly refers to the historical present as the historical moment in which the technocratic capacity of individuals, states, and markets to respond to existential problems is hindered by information overload, e.g., the threat to the Rule of Law presented by an outgoing American President who refuses to accept the verdict of the electorate; the threat to public health posed by persistent vaccine misinformation and inequitable global vaccine distribution; and, the threat posed to our collective habitat by extreme climate events. The paper concludes that fiction is a powerful potential antidote to the numbing effects of information overload in Technopoly if it is treated seriously as a source of normative authority rather than dismissed as pure diversion.

An appraisal of frontier relations between the peoples of North Africa and the Sudanese zone of pre-colonial West Africa: A historical discourse

The present paper examines the nature and patterns of interactions between the people of North Africa and the Sudanese zone of West Africa during the pre-colonial period. It reveals the symbiotic relations that shaped their interaction during the period and the factors that facilitated their contact despite the barrier of the Saharan desert. Similarly the paper refutes the claims of some European writers in the colonial period, and shortly, after that, the peoples of the Sudanese zone were incapable of any historical consciousness, nor able to evolve genuine institutions, without the support of the peoples of North Africa and Europeans. The work establishes that despite the impenetrable space of the Saharan desert, the peoples of North Africa and the Sudanese zone were able to mingle, exchange goods, ideas, beliefs and foster mutual relationships that impacted positively on both regions of the continent. The paper reveals that a major factor that has influenced if not, contributed to the belief held by some of these Europeans concerning the history of the Sudanese zone in particular, and Africa South of the Sahara in general is the narrow nature of their sources, which focuses more on secondary sources. The paper concludes that the biased account concerning the Sudanese zone during the period under review has been refuted successfully through broader approaches to the historical study of African history that involves an interdisciplinary approach as well as expansion of the sources to include oral sources among others. It utilises the theory of transnationalism to theorise and shed light on the frontier dimension of human movement across borders. The paper also employs secondary sources.

The Algorithms of Mindfulness

This paper analyzes notions and models of optimized cognition emerging at the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, and computing. What I somewhat polemically call the algorithms of mindfulness describes an ideal that determines algorithmic techniques of the self, geared at emotional resilience and creative cognition. A reframing of rest, exemplified in corporate mindfulness programs and the design of experimental artificial neural networks sits at the heart of this process. Mindfulness trainings provide cues as to this reframing, for they detail each in their own way how intermittent periods of rest are to be recruited to augment our cognitive capacities and combat the effects of stress and information overload. They typically rely on and co-opt neuroscience knowledge about what the brains of North Americans and Europeans do when we rest. Current designs for artificial neural networks draw on the same neuroscience research and incorporate coarse principles of cognition in brains to make machine learning systems more resilient and creative. These algorithmic techniques are primarily conceived to prevent psychopathologies where stress is considered the driving force of success. Against this backdrop, I ask how machine learning systems could be employed to unsettle the concept of pathological cognition itself.

Chronic Immune Activation and CD4+ T Cell Lymphopenia in Healthy African Individuals: Perspectives for SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Efficacy.

Chronic immune activation has been considered as the driving force for CD4+ T cell depletion in people infected with HIV-1. Interestingly, the normal immune profile of adult HIV-negative individuals living in Africa also exhibit chronic immune activation, reminiscent of that observed in HIV-1 infected individuals. It is characterized by increased levels of soluble immune activation markers, such as the cytokines interleukin (IL)-4, IL-10, TNF-α, and cellular activation markers including HLA-DR, CD-38, CCR5, coupled with reduced naïve and increased memory cells in CD4+ and CD8+ subsets. In addition, it is accompanied by low CD4+ T cell counts when compared to Europeans. There is also evidence that mononuclear cells from African infants secrete less innate cytokines than South and North Americans and Europeans in vitro. Chronic immune activation in Africans is linked to environmental factors such as parasitic infections and could be responsible for previously observed immune hypo-responsiveness to infections and vaccines. It is unclear whether the immunogenicity and effectiveness of anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines will also be reduced by similar mechanisms. A review of studies investigating this phenomenon is urgently required as they should inform the design and delivery for vaccines to be used in African populations.

Distribution of CCR5 Δ32 HIV-1 resistance allele frequency at Zanjan province in Iran

Introduction: The CC chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) is known as the main co-receptor in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Accumulating evidence verified 32bp deletion in both alleles of CCR5 provides natural resistance to HIV infection. Accordingly, recent therapeutic approaches are based on gene and cell therapies by inducing this resistance. Allogeneic transplantation of stem cells with CCR5Δ32 homozygous to HIV infected people has been considered as an efficient strategy. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine CCR5 Δ32 mutation frequency in healthy and HIV-infected individuals in Zanjan province, in Iran and also detecting appropriate candidate for future therapeutic approaches. Patients and Methods: In this study, blood samples were collected from 102 HIV infected patients and 204 healthy controls in ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) pre-coated tubes. DNA extraction was performed and analyzed for CCR5Δ32 mutation by GAP-PCR in both groups and followed by 2% gel agarose electrophoresis. The Δ32 genotype frequency was statistically determined. Results: Our finding demonstrated that 3 HIV infected patients displayed CCR5 mutation, while 204 healthy controls showed one CCR5 Δ32/Δ32 homozygote mutation. We observed that Δ32 mutation frequency is 0.82% in Zanjan province (χ2 =47.58, P&lt;0.001). Conclusion: Reduction in CCR5 mutation frequency as well as the other polymorphisms related to HIV resistance, can lead to the development of HIV infection epidemiology. Migration, natural selection and genetic admixture can elucidate various distribution of Δ32 allele frequency in different populations, like as north Europeans that reduce gradually to south. The result of this study can facilitate the presentation of suitable Δ32 donors to HIV infected patients in therapeutic approaches.

Learning through sharing: beyond the traditional North-South learning models for a circular built environment

There is a general assumption that knowledge sharing takes place in a North-South direction; with North Americans and Europeans providing pearls of wisdom to the global South. At a recent Sustainable Built Environment knowledge sharing workshop this assumption was challenged. The workshop brought together building and circular economy experts from governments, public and private sector, financing organisations and researchers. The aim of this workshop was to share experiences between experts from The Netherlands, actively engaged in promoting and applying circularity principles in the country and the region, and Sustainable Building and Construction (SBC) partners engaged in promoting sustainable building and construction practices, including circularity, internationally. Participants were from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and the EU. The workshop was set up in an interactive, action research format. The key messages arising from the workshop supported that South-North learning was equally valuable as North-South learning, supporting knowledge sharing rather than knowledge transfer. There was a recognition of the imminent danger of global system collapse if current practices were not changed immediately. Urgency was recognised as being a key driver to move to a new paradigm shift both in the North and the global South. There was also a recognition that since the task is complex and there are multifaceted considerations, it is not helpful to wait to align all stakeholders to develop common solutions. Grass roots engagement and development need to be supported and nurtured in alignment with various stakeholders. Governments can support circular processes through a top-down policy platform. Traditional and cultural practices in the global South may provide not only ideas for engagement but also new ways of thinking in a quest for diversity of solutions to be applied to reach our sustainability goals.

Common determinants of severe Covid-19 infection are explicable by SARS-CoV-2 secreted glycoprotein interaction with the CD33-related Siglecs, Siglec-3 and Siglec-5/14

SARS-CoV-2 interaction with the ACE-2 receptor cannot alone explain the demography and remarkable variation in clinical progression of Covid-19 infection.Unlike SARS-CoV, the cause of SARS, several SARS-CoV-2 spike glycans contain sialic acid residues. In contrast to the SARS secreted glycoprotein (SGP), SARS-CoV-2 SGP are thus potential ligands for Sialic acid-binding Siglecs on host immune cells, known to regulate immune function. Such SARS-CoV-2 glycoproteins would contribute to immune deviation.CD33-related Siglecs are important immune regulators. Siglec-5 and −14 are paired receptors with opposed actions on the NLRP3 inflammasome, which is critical in early viral clearance. SGP binding in persons of Siglec-14 null genotype (30–70% in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) persons, 10% in North Europeans) would induce unopposed inhibitory signalling, causing viral persistence through inflammasome inhibition.Siglec-3 (CD33) and Siglec-5 are expressed on CD33 myeloid derived suppressor cells (CD33 MDSC). Immunosuppressive CD33 MDSC populations are increased in all groups at risk of severe Covid-19 infection. CD33 expression is increased in persons with the CD33 rs3865444 CC allele, associated with Alzheimer’s disease, who would thus show enhanced susceptibility. Viral SGP ligation of CD33, potentially in conjunction with Siglec-5, would promote expansion of CD33 MDSC cells, as occurs in cancers but at much greater scale.CD33 is expressed on CNS microglia, potentially activated by SGP penetration through the porous cribriform plate to cause anosmia.Genotyping of severe or fatal Covid-19 cases can confirm or refute this pathophysiological mechanism. Early data have confirmed extremely high-level increase of CD33 MDSC numbers in severe Covid-19 infection, consistent with the proposed mechanism.

Renamed: The Living, the Dead, and the Global in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Christianity

Abstract Over the nineteenth century, thousands of North Americans and Europeans paid to sponsor and rename foreign children in mission stations across the world. This popular fundraising model has been largely unstudied to date. When the extant records are pieced together, it becomes evident that U.S. Protestants commonly renamed foreign children after their own beloved dead. As a result, these programs offer important insight into how Americans who never traveled abroad still cultivated global subjectivities—in this case, through their connections with other-than-human presences. By nurturing relations with what they viewed as globally active agents, such as God, angels, and the dead, U.S. donors cultivated a sense of themselves as subjects who were Christian, American, and globally active. For mourning families, renaming also seemed to impress their dead’s “qualities” onto foreign children, creating what they viewed as opportunities to collaborate with the dead and reconstitute some aspect of ruptured domestic relations. Focusing on a group often assumed to be the most disenchanted of nineteenth-century moderns—U.S. Protestants in the rising middle class—this article calls for more attention to the “otherworldly” in histories of global relations.

‘A piece of cachou called Ivanhoe’: Elizabeth Taylor, medievalist historical film and American interfaith marriage

Ivanhoe (USA, 1952) is one of only a handful of historical films set in medieval Europe, and by far the most significant one, to include Jewish characters. This high-grossing film, ultimately derived from Walter Scott’s 1819 sprawling historical novel, was produced by Pandro Berman, a Jew with explicitly political goals. The film put Jews on to the imagined map of medieval Europe, the bedrock of heritage and identity for North Americans and Europeans, when Jews were not necessarily perceived as ‘belonging’ either in Europe or in European-dominated North America. This article explores how the film countered the anti-Semitism of the era by using the interfaith romances of the Jewess Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor) to create desire for cross-cultural integration. The film stoked this desire over several decades through the star script of the extraordinarily desirable Taylor, whose conversion to Judaism in 1959 sutured her on- and off-screen bodies even closer together.

Abortion travels: An international history

This article examines how women crossed local and national borders in order to obtain abortions despite laws and religious injunctions that forbade abortion. Investigating that travel reveals transnational networks of information and assistance among abortion providers, physicians, feminists, and others; it also makes visible how changing laws changed patterns of abortion travel. This article considers travelling for abortion from the 19th through the 21st century primarily by North Americans and Europeans who travelled across borders, oceans, and continents to many different countries around the world in order to obtain abortions.

131 Differences in Androgen Levels and Sexual Function between North American and European Men

Previous studies have indicated sex steroid levels vary by geographic location, suggesting environmental factors may play a role in hormone production. Despite this, few studies have evaluated the association of androgen levels and sexual function with geographic location. To identify the differences in baseline androgen levels and sexual function between North American and European men in the Reduction by Dutasteride in Prostate Cancer Events (REDUCE) Study. We evaluated data of 5,825 men in the REDUCE study, which included subjects aged 50-75 years with prostate-specific antigen levels of 2.5-10 ng/mL (50-60 years) or 3.0-10 ng/mL (60-75 years) and a negative baseline prostate biopsy. Subjects were divided in two groups: North Americans and Europeans. Differences in baseline demographics, comorbidities, laboratory results and questionnaire-based sexual function (Problem Assessment Scale of Sexual Function Index: PAS-SFI) between groups were evaluated using analysis of variance and chi-square tests in univariable analysis, and linear and logistic regressions in multivariable analysis. Subgroup analyses further dividing Europeans into Eastern and Western were performed as above.

A priori-defined Mediterranean-like dietary pattern predicts cardiovascular events better in north Europe than in Mediterranean countries

BackgroundThe Mediterranean Diet (MD) is a model of healthy eating contributing to a favorable health status, but its clinical usefulness is still debated. The aim of this study was to relate the adherence to MD with the incidence of cardio/cerebro-vascular events (VEs) in north and south European participants of the IMPROVE study. MethodsIMPROVE is an observational, longitudinal, prospective cohort study involving 3703 individuals from five European countries (Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, France and Italy). The study end-point was the incidence of the first combined cardio/cerebro-vascular event occurring during 36-months follow-up. At baseline, a dietary questionnaire about the usual intake during the year preceding enrollment was administered. Based on 7 nutritional items, a MD Score was constructed in which minimal adherence was 0 and maximal adherence was 7. ResultsLatitude was the strongest determinant of MD score (p < 0.001). VEs occurred in 215 participants. The incidence of VEs was the highest in subjects with MD score 0–1, lower in those with score 2–3 and the lowest in those with score ≥ 4. MD score remained significantly associated with subsequent VEs after adjustment for confounders (hazard ratio for one-point increment of the score = 0.75, p < 0.001) and the association was stronger in northern than in southern countries (p = 0.04 for MD Score × latitude interaction). ConclusionsThe MD adherence score based on a simple dietary questionnaire detects changes of risk of VEs. According to our findings north Europeans appear to benefit most from VE-prevention when their diet is altered to the MD diet.

Dental Morphological Affinities Among Late-Pleistocene and Recent Humans

The study uses analyses of Mean Measure of Divergence (MMD) to assess the affinities of ten populations representing early anatomically modern humans, Upper Paleolithic Europeans, recent modern humans, and Neandertals. The 18-triat MMD analysis demonstrates that, dentally, Neandertals are quite divergent from all modern humans. The results of cluster analyses based on MMD values suggest two major clusters: Neandertals and modern humans. The data also suggest two sub-clusters within the modern human cluster. One links Upper Paleolithic Europeans with recent North Africans and Europeans. The other links early anatomically modern humans with Late Pleistocene Africans and recent Sub-Saharan Africans. These results do not support a close relationship between Neandertals and any modern human groups samples. They also tentatively suggest that, if the two populations were interbreeding, it is not reflected in their dental morphology. The results showing a close affinity between early anatomically modern humans and Sub-Saharan Africans are consist with the Recent African Origin model for modern human origins.