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In this study, we investigated the relationship between age at menopause and different types of stroke in >200,000 postmenopausal women using data from the EPIC-CVD study and the UK Biobank. We obtained observational associations and performed Mendelian Randomisation analysis to study causality. We found a significant association between earlier menopause and higher risk of stroke […]

This paper – published in Gerontology – outlines the broad aims of the Proof-ATHERO consortium and describes the principal methodology of data management and analysis of study data. The Proof-ATHERO consortium collates individual-participant data of studies with information on atherosclerosis measures, risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and incident cardiovascular events. More details about the consortium […]

In this paper – published in Circulation – we quantified the association between the intervention effects on carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) progression and the intervention effect on cardiovascular risk. Therefore, we systematically reviewed the literature and collected aggregated literature based data and individual participant data from 119 randomised controlled trials involving a total of […]

Overweight and obesity are increasing worldwide. To help assess their relevance to mortality in different populations we meta-analysed prospective studies of body-mass index, limiting confounding and reverse causality by restricting analyses to never-smokers and excluding pre-existing disease and the first 5 years of follow-up. Of 10 625 411 participants in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and […]

Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is a causal risk factor for cardiovascular disease. In this paper published in JACC we aimed to investigate whether Lp(a) modifies clinical risk assessment in the general community. We measured Lp(a) in 826 men and women (age range, 45 to 84 years) and recorded incidence of cardiovascular diseases over 15 years of follow-up. […]

Leading on from our work on telomeres in the Bruneck Study, we have conducted in this paper published in the BMJ a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between leucocyte telomere length and cardiovascular risk. Our analysis included studies published up to March 2014 identified through searches of Medline, Web of Science, and […]

Recommendations about the limits for low risk for alcohol consumption vary substantially across different national guidelines. In this large collaborative paper published in the Lancet, we aimed to define thresholds associated with lowest risk for mortality and cardiovascular disease, by analysis of data from 599912 drinkers without previous cardiovascular disease. In our analysis, we combined […]

Current guidelines for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases focus on the prediction of coronary heart disease and stroke. However, in a significant proportion of people, heart failure is the first presentation of cardiovascular disease, which is not included in prediction models. In this study published in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, we aimed to test whether […]

Frequent sauna bathing is associated with a reduced risk of stroke, according to a new international study. In a 15-year follow-up study, people taking a sauna 4-7 times a week were 61% less likely to suffer a stroke than those taking a sauna once a week. This is the first prospective large-scale study on this […]