Catharine R Gale

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the 1-year prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and their comorbidity were associated with subsequent all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality during 15 years in Vietnam veterans.

METHODS: Participants (N = 4256) were from the Vietnam Experience Study. Service, sociodemographic, and health data were collected from service files, telephone interviews, and a medical examination. One-year prevalence of ...

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the effects of head growth prenatally, during infancy, and during later periods of development on cognitive function at the ages of 4 and 8 years.

METHODS: We studied 633 term-born children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children cohort whose head circumference was measured at birth and at regular intervals thereafter. Their cognitive function was assessed with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence at the age of 4 years and ...

Background: loneliness and social isolation have been associated with mortality and with functional decline in older people. We investigated whether loneliness or social isolation are associated with progression of frailty.

Methods: participants were 2,817 people aged ≥60 from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Loneliness was assessed at Wave 2 using the Revised UCLA scale (short version). A social isolation score at Wave 2 was derived from data on living alone, frequency of ...

Cross-sectional studies show that higher blood concentrations of inflammatory markers tend to be more common in frail older people, but longitudinal evidence that these inflammatory markers are risk factors for frailty is sparse and inconsistent. We investigated the prospective relation between baseline concentrations of the inflammatory markers C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen and risk of incident frailty in 2,146 men and women aged 60 to over 90 years from the English ...

CONTEXT: Lower cognitive ability is a risk factor for some forms of psychopathology, but much of the evidence for risk is based on individuals who required specialist care. It is unclear whether lower ability influences the risk of particular patterns of comorbidity.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation between premorbid cognitive ability in early adulthood and the risk of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcohol and other drug ...

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D insufficiency is common in women of childbearing age and increasing evidence suggests that the risk of osteoporotic fracture in adulthood could be determined partly by environmental factors during intrauterine and early postnatal life. We investigated the effect of maternal vitamin D status during pregnancy on childhood skeletal growth.

METHODS: In a longitudinal study, we studied 198 children born in 1991-92 in a hospital in Southampton, UK; the body build, ...

BACKGROUND: The English NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme has offered biennial faecal occult blood testing to people aged 60-69 years since 2006, and to those aged 60-74 years since 2010. Analysis of the first 2.6 million screening invitations found that 54% of eligible people took up the invitation. The reasons for this low uptake are unclear. We investigated whether participation in screening varies according to cognitive ability and personality.

METHODS: Participants were members ...

Neuroticism is a personality trait of fundamental importance for psychological well-being and public health. It is strongly associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) and several other psychiatric conditions. Although neuroticism is heritable, attempts to identify the alleles involved in previous studies have been limited by relatively small sample sizes. Here we report a combined meta-analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) of neuroticism that includes 91 370 participants ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the cross-sectional associations between generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), their comorbidity, and hypertension.

METHODS: Participants (n = 4180) were drawn from a cohort of men who were members of the U.S. army during the Vietnam war era. Occupational, sociodemographic, and health data were collected from military service files, telephone interviews, and medical examinations. Hypertension status was defined by the presence of ...

BACKGROUND: Cross-sectional surveys of older people commonly find associations between higher levels of depressive symptoms and poorer cognitive performance, but the direction of effect is unclear. We examined whether there was a bidirectional relationship between depressive symptoms and general cognitive ability in non-demented older people, and explored the role of physical health, smoking, exercise, social class and education as potential confounders of this association and as ...

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether vitamin C status, as measured by dietary intake and plasma ascorbic acid concentration, is related to mortality from stroke and coronary heart disease in people aged 65 and over.

DESIGN: A 20 year follow up study of a cohort of randomly selected elderly people living in the community who had taken part in the 1973-4 Department of Health and Social Security nutritional survey and for whom dietary and other data had been recorded.

SETTING: Eight areas in ...

BACKGROUND: Maternal nutrition during pregnancy has been linked with fetal brain development and psychopathology in the offspring. We examined for associations of maternal folate status and dietary intake during pregnancy with brain growth and childhood behavioural difficulties in the offspring.

METHODS: In a prospective cohort study, maternal red blood cell folate (RCF) was measured at 14 weeks of pregnancy and total folate intake (TFI) from food and supplements was assessed in early ...

BACKGROUND: Physical activity, diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption have been shown to be related to mortality. We examined prospectively the individual and combined influence of these risk factors on total and cause-specific mortality.

METHODS: The prospective cohort study included 4886 individuals at least 18 years old from a United Kingdom-wide population in 1984 to 1985. A health behavior score was calculated, allocating 1 point for each poor behavior: smoking; fruits and ...

BACKGROUND: Several studies in older people have shown that grip strength predicts all-cause mortality. The mechanisms are unclear. Muscle strength declines with age, accompanied by a loss of muscle mass and an increase in fat, but the role that body composition plays in the association between grip strength and mortality has been little explored. We investigated the relation between grip strength, body composition, and cause-specific and total mortality in 800 men and women aged 65 and ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between locus of control at age 10 years and self-reported health outcomes (overweight, obesity, psychological distress, health, and hypertension) and health behaviors (smoking and physical activity) at age 30, controlling for sex, childhood IQ, educational attainment, earnings, and socioeconomic position.

METHODS: Participants were members of the 1970 British Cohort Study, a national birth cohort. At age 10, 11,563 children took tests to measure ...