The Indigenous Sami population have inhabited rural northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia for thousands of years. Today, many Sami live in cities. No large quantitative studies have investigated the health and life of urban Sami in Norway. As a basis for further research, this paper describes the background, methods, participation and sample characteristics of ...

Background: Vegetable and/or fruit intakes in association with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk have been investigated in case–control studies conducted in specific European countries and cohort studies conducted in Asia, with inconclusive results. No multi-centre European cohort has investigated the indicated associations. Methods: In 486 799 men/women from the European Prospective Investigation ...

Analysis of blood RNA transcription profiles is hindered by ex vivogene expression changes, as well as degradation and loss of RNA over time during specimen transportation and storage. The PAXgeneBlood RNA System was developed by PreAnalytiXto overcome these problems. So far, quality control data has shown that the PAXgene Blood RNA System stabilizes and preserves RNA in blood specimens for up to ...

Background: Reliable statistics on the underlying cause of death are essential for monitoring the health in a population. When there is insufcient information to identify the true underlying cause of death, the death will be classifed using less informative codes, garbage codes. If many deaths are assigned a garbage code, the information value of the cause-of-death statistics is reduced. The aim ...

<p><i>Background</i>: Alcohol is consumed almost worldwide and is the most widely used recreational drug in the world. Harmful use of alcohol is known to cause a large disease-, social- and economic burden on society. Only a few studies have examined the relationship between CAM use and alcohol consumption. To our knowledge there has been no such research in Norway. The aim of this study is to ...

Introduction: The introduction of high-throughput technologies, also called -omics technologies, into epidemiology has raised the need for high-quality observational studies to reduce several sources of error and bias. Methods: The Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) postgenome cohort study consists of approximately 50,000 women born between 1943 and 1957 who gave blood samples between 2003 ...

Background: <br>Most patients presenting with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) in primary care are prescribed an antibiotic, which may not always be appropriate and may cause harm. C-reactive protein (CRP) is an acute-phase biomarker that can be rapidly measured at the point of care and may predict benefit from antibiotic treatment in AECOPD. It is not clear ...

Background: General practitioners (GPs) in most high-income countries have a history of being independent private providers with much autonomy. While GPs remain private providers, their autonomous position appears to be challenged by increased policy regulations. This paper examines the extent to which GPs’ preferences for private practice vs. salaried contracts changed in a period where a new ...

Context: The relationship between low-penetrance genes, metabolic risk factors, and levels of endogenous 17β-estradiol and progesterone, which play a role in breast cancer risk, remains unclear. <br>Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether common polymorphisms in CYP17, in combination with metabolic risk factors (individually or clustered), alter salivary concentrations of free ...

Introduction: Breast cancer in situ (BCIS) diagnoses, a precursor lesion for invasive breast cancer, comprise about 20 % of all breast cancers (BC) in countries with screening programs. Family history of BC is considered one of the strongest risk factors for BCIS.<p><p>Methods: To evaluate the association of BC susceptibility loci with BCIS risk, we genotyped 39 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), ...