http://edoc.rki.de/176904/44 Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:32:23 GMT 2026-08-13T11:32:23Z http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13814 Worldwide Trends in Blood Pressure from 1975 to 2015: a pooled analysis of 1479 population-based measurement studies with 19.1 million participants NCD Risk Factor Collaboration Background Raised blood pressure is an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and chronic kidney disease. We estimated worldwide trends in mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure, and the prevalence of, and number of people with, raised blood pressure, defined as systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher or diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher. Methods For this analysis, we pooled national, subnational, or community population-based studies that had measured blood pressure in adults aged 18 years and older. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1975 to 2015 in mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure, and the prevalence of raised blood pressure for 200 countries. We calculated the contributions of changes in prevalence versus population growth and ageing to the increase in the number of adults with raised blood pressure. Findings We pooled 1479 studies that had measured the blood pressures of 19·1 million adults. Global age-standardised mean systolic blood pressure in 2015 was 127·0 mm Hg (95% credible interval 125·7–128·3) in men and 122·3 mm Hg (121·0–123·6) in women; age-standardised mean diastolic blood pressure was 78·7 mm Hg (77·9–79·5) for men and 76·7 mm Hg (75·9–77·6) for women. Global age-standardised prevalence of raised blood pressure was 24·1% (21·4–27·1) in men and 20·1% (17·8–22·5) in women in 2015. Mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure decreased substantially from 1975 to 2015 in high-income western and Asia Pacific countries, moving these countries from having some of the highest worldwide blood pressure in 1975 to the lowest in 2015. Mean blood pressure also decreased in women in central and eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and, more recently, central Asia, Middle East, and north Africa, but the estimated trends in these super-regions had larger uncertainty than in high-income super-regions. By contrast, mean blood pressure might have increased in east and southeast Asia, south Asia, Oceania, and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, central and eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and south Asia had the highest blood pressure levels. Prevalence of raised blood pressure decreased in high-income and some middle-income countries; it remained unchanged elsewhere. The number of adults with raised blood pressure increased from 594 million in 1975 to 1·13 billion in 2015, with the increase largely in low-income and middle-income countries. The global increase in the number of adults with raised blood pressure is a net effect of increase due to population growth and ageing, and decrease due to declining age-specific prevalence. Interpretation During the past four decades, the highest worldwide blood pressure levels have shifted from high-income countries to low-income countries in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa due to opposite trends, while blood pressure has been persistently high in central and eastern Europe. Sat, 01 Jan 2107 00:00:00 GMT http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13814 2107-01-01T00:00:00Z http://edoc.rki.de/176904/2166.2 Erratum to: "Updated prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in 11- to 17-year-old adolescents in Germany. Results from the telephone-based KiGGS Wave 1 after correction for bias in self-reports" Brettschneider, Anna-Kristin; Rosario, Angelika Schaffrath; Kuhnert, Ronny; Schmidt, Steffen; Wiegand, Susanna; Ellert, Ute; Kurth, Bärbel-Maria Background: The nationwide “German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents” (KiGGS), conducted in 2003–2006, showed an increase in the prevalence rates of overweight and obesity compared to the early 1990s, indicating the need for regularly monitoring. Recently, a follow-up—KiGGS Wave 1 (2009–2012)—was carried out as a telephone-based survey, providing self-reported height and weight. Since self-reports lead to a bias in prevalence rates of weight status, a correction is needed. The aim of the present study is to obtain updated prevalence rates for overweight and obesity for 11- to 17-year olds living in Germany after correction for bias in self-reports. Methods: In KiGGS Wave 1, self-reported height and weight were collected from 4948 adolescents during a telephone interview. Participants were also asked about their body perception. From a subsample of KiGGS Wave 1 participants, measurements for height and weight were collected in a physical examination. In order to correct prevalence rates derived from self-reports, weight status categories based on self-reported and measured height and weight were used to estimate a correction formula according to an established procedure under consideration of body perception. The correction procedure was applied and corrected rates were estimated. Results: The corrected prevalence of overweight, including obesity, derived from KiGGS Wave 1, showed that the rate has not further increased compared to the KiGGS baseline survey (18.9 % vs. 18.8 % based on the German reference). Conclusion: The rates of overweight still remain at a high level. The results of KiGGS Wave 1 emphasise the significance of this health issue and the need for prevention of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. Wed, 09 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://edoc.rki.de/176904/2166.2 2016-03-09T00:00:00Z http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13813 Risk of of Second Primary Cancers in Multiple Myeloma Survivors in German and Swedish Cancer Registries Chen, Tianhui; Fallah, Mahdi; Brenner, Hermann; Jansen, Lina; Mai, Elias K.; Castro, Felipe A.; Katalinic, Alexander; Emrich, Katharina; Holleczek, Bernd; Eberle, Andrea; Sundquist, Kristina; Hemminki, Kari; GEKID Canceer Survival Working Group We aimed at investigating the distribution and risk of second primary cancers (SPCs) in multiple myeloma (MM) survivors in Germany and Sweden to provide etiological understanding of SPCs and insight into their incidence rates and recording practices. MM patients diagnosed in 1997–2010 at age ≥15 years were selected from the Swedish (nationwide) and 12 German cancer registries. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were used to assess risk of a specific SPC compared to risk of the same first cancer in the corresponding background population. Among 18,735 survivors of first MM in Germany and 7,560 in Sweden, overall 752 and 349 SPCs were recorded, respectively. Significantly elevated SIRs of specific SPCs were observed for acute myeloid leukemia (AML; SIR = 4.9) in Germany and for kidney cancer (2.3), AML (2.3) and nervous system cancer (1.9) in Sweden. Elevated risk for AML was more pronounced in the earlier diagnosis period compared to the later, i.e., 9.7 (4.2–19) for 1997–2003 period versus 3.5 (1.5–6.9) for 2004–2010 in Germany; 3.8 (1.4–8.3) for 1997–2003 versus 2.2 (0.3–7.8) for 2004–2010 in Sweden. We found elevated risk for AML for overall, early diagnosis periods and longer follow-up times in both populations, suggesting possible side effects of treatment for MM patients. Wed, 24 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13813 2016-02-24T00:00:00Z http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13812 SLIMM: Species level identification of microorganisms from metagenomes Dadi, Temesgen Hailemariam; Renard, Bernhard; Wieler, Lothar H.; Semmler, Torsten; Reinert, Knut Identification and quantification of microorganisms is an important step in studying the alpha and beta diversities within and between microbial communities respectively. Both, identification and quantification of a given microbial community can be carried out using whole genome shotgun sequences with less bias than using 16S-rRNA sequences. However, shared regions of DNA among reference genomes and taxonomic units pose a significant challenge in assigning reads correctly to their true origins. The existing microbial community profiling tools commonly deal with this problem by either preparing signature-based unique references or assigning an ambiguous read to its least common ancestor in a taxonomic tree. The former method is limited to making use of the reads which can be mapped to the curated regions, while the later suffer from the lack of uniquely-mapped reads at higher (more specific) taxonomic ranks. Moreover, even if the tools exhibited generally good performance in calling the organisms present in a sample, there is room for improvement in calling the correct relative abundance of the organisms. We present a new method Species Level Identification of Microorganisms from Metagenomes (SLIMM) which addresses the above issues by using coverage information of reference genomes to remove unlikely genomes from the analysis and subsequently gain more uniquely-mapped reads to assign at higher ranks of a taxonomic tree. SLIMM is based on a few, seemingly easy steps which lead to a tool that outperforms state-of-the- art tools in run-time and/or memory usage while being on par or better in computing quantitative and qualitative information at the species level. Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://edoc.rki.de/176904/13812 2016-08-19T00:00:00Z