Diets high in subsidized foods and chronic kidney disease in Hispanic communities in the United States: the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos.

Prior research shows that diets high in government subsidized foods may be associated with cardiometabolic disease risk factors. Our aim was to evaluate the relationship between diets high in subsidized foods and the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and other cardiometabolic risk factors in United States (US) Hispanics/Latinos. Using data from 16,172 Hispanics/Latino's living in the United States, we used the Cochran-Armitage test to assess the relationship between subsidized foods in the diets of participants and baseline characteristics. We used survey-weighted Poisson regression models to examine whether intake of subsidized foods was associated with incident CKD or cardiometabolic risk factors. Several baseline characteristics were associated with higher subsidized food scores. Higher subsidized food scores were not associated with incident CKD or cardiometabolic risk factors. These findings may be useful for future researchers, clinicians, and nutritional policy advocates who are interested in the way Hispanic and Latinos consume foods subsidized by the US government and the structural factors that may shape observed dietary and disease patterns.

African Ancestry-Specific Alleles and Kidney Disease Risk in Hispanics/Latinos.

African ancestry alleles may contribute to CKD among Hispanics/Latinos, but whether associations differ by Hispanic/Latino background remains unknown. We examined the association of CKD measures with African ancestry-specific APOL1 alleles that were directly genotyped and sickle cell trait (hemoglobin subunit ß gene [HBB] variant) on the basis of imputation in 12,226 adult Hispanics/Latinos grouped according to Caribbean or Mainland background. We also performed an unbiased genome-wide association scan of urine albumin-to-creatinine ratios. Overall, 41.4% of participants were male, 44.6% of participants had a Caribbean background, and the mean age of all participants was 46.1 years. The Caribbean background group, compared with the Mainland background group, had a higher frequency of two APOL1 alleles (1.0% versus 0.1%) and the HBB variant (2.0% versus 0.7%). In the Caribbean background group, presence of APOL1 alleles (2 versus 0/1 copies) or the HBB variant (1 versus 0 copies) were significantly associated with albuminuria (odds ratio [OR], 3.2; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.7 to 6.1; and OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.8 to 3.8, respectively) and albuminuria and/or eGFR<60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.5 to 5.4; and OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 1.7 to 3.5, respectively). The urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio genome-wide association scan identified associations with the HBB variant among all participants, with the strongest association in the Caribbean background group (P=3.1×10-10 versus P=9.3×10-3 for the Mainland background group). In conclusion, African-specific alleles associate with CKD in Hispanics/Latinos, but allele frequency varies by Hispanic/Latino background/ancestry.

p16 and p53 Protein expression as prognostic indicators of survival and disease recurrence from head and neck cancer.

PURPOSE: Markers of somatic mutation such as p16 and p53 remain controversial prognostic indicators for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). The relationship between p53 protein expression and radiation therapy is also unclear. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We made a prospective cohort study (n = 171) of incident cases receiving standardized therapy for SCCHN. RESULTS: Patients whose tumors showed increased p53 protein expression had over twice the risk of all-cause mortality after 550 days [hazard ratio (HR), 2.7; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.07-6.66] and three times the risk of dying from cancer-specific causes after 550 days (HR, 3.09; 95% CI, 1.15-8.30) after adjustment for age, therapy, and stage. Tumors demonstrating alteration of both p16 and p53 did not confer any additional diagnostic information over p53 alone. Patients whose tumors expressed increased levels of p53 protein and received radiation were almost three times more likely to die as compared with those who received radiation but whose tumors did not express increased p53 protein after adjustment for age and stage (HR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.03-6.50). CONCLUSIONS: p53 protein expression was found to violate the proportional hazards assumption for our cohort, which may explain the controversial prognostic ability of this protein in the literature. p53 protein expression, but not p16 protein expression, was related to poor survival in general for men and women. In addition, an interaction between p53 expression and radiation therapy was demonstrated. Additional studies are needed to confirm and extend our results.