MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ayesha Lavell MD
Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Internal Medicine,
Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunity
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Nose picking is so common in the overall population (91% in a survey study in the US, performed in 1995), maybe people find it hard to refrain from such a common behavior. We were really curious whether this particular behavior would be more prone to infection spread, as it entails literally putting a potentially contaminate finger against the nasal mucosa. Also, previous research has shown us that nose picking is associated with nasal carriage of S. Aureus bacteria and volunteers have shown to be able to infect themselves with a common cold virus (Rhinovirus) by rubbing the virus inside their nose (laboratory based research in the early seventies). Therefore, it is surprising (given the amount of literature on SARS-CoV-2) that the relationship between nose picking and COVID-19 has not been studied before. And especially since health care workers are at increased risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2, we wanted to know more about common behavioral features that may contribute to this risk.
Dr. van Dalen[/caption]
Jan Willem van Dalen, PhD
Department of Neurology
Donders Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Cognition
Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen
Department of Neurology
The Netherlands3Department of Public and Occupational Health
Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Although high systolic blood pressure in midlife has consistently been reported as a condition that increases the risk of developing dementia in old age, reports regarding this relationship in older people have been inconsistent. One potential reason for this, is that the relationship between systolic blood pressure and dementia in later life may be U-shaped, meaning that both individuals with low and with high systolic blood pressure are at increased incident dementia risk.
This study combined data from several longitudinal cohort studies specifically designed to study incident dementia in older people, to investigate whether these U-shaped relationships exist, and in which age ranges they appear. We included more than 16,500 people aged 60 and older, with over 2,700 incident dementia cases.
Also, we aimed to investigate whether these observational associations might be caused by confounding, differences in mortality, or result from opposite relationships between certain subgroups of individuals.