Despite recent progress on estimating the heritability explained by genotyped SNPs (h(2)g), a large gap between h(2)g and estimates of total narrow-sense heritability (h(2)) remains. Explanations for this gap include rare variants or upward bias in family-based estimates of h(2) due to shared environment or epistasis. We estimate h(2) from unrelated individuals in admixed populations by first estimating the heritability explained by local ancestry (h(2)?). We show that h(2)? = 2FSTC?(1 - ?)h(2),...

OBJECTIVES: Previous research has reported associations between social relationships and carcinogenesis. Inflammation is a potential mediator of these associations. To clarify these links for one tumor site, we examined associations between social relationships, circulating inflammation markers, and breast cancer incidence. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Among 132,262 participants from the prospective Women's Health Initiative, we used linear and logistic regression to evaluate associations between soci...

Women with history of pregnancy loss (PL) have higher burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) later in life, yet it is unclear whether this is attributable to an association with established CVD risk factors (RFs). We examined whether PL is associated with CVD RFs and biomarkers in parous postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative, and whether the association between PL and CVD RFs accounted for the association between PL and incident CVD. Linear and logistic regressions were used to e...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the association of type II diabetes and anthropometric variables with risk of pancreatic cancer among postmenopausal women. METHODS: Weight, height, waist circumference, and hip circumference were measured by trained personnel, whereas history of diabetes and weight earlier in life were self-reported. Pancreatic cancer was ascertained via central review of medical records by physician adjudicators. After exclusions, 1045 cases of pancreatic cance...

Background: Diet affects inflammation and kidney health, but few studies have investigated dietary inflammatory potential in CKD progression, particularly in women. We aim to examine this association in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI). Methods: We conducted a non-concurrent prospective cohort study among WHI participants enrolled in the clinical trials and observational study (1993-1998) without baseline CKD and with available dietary intake assessments, Medicare data, and creatinine measure...