Nurses' Health Study

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The Nurses' Health Study (abbreviated: NHS) is a US longitudinal study that made important contributions to nutrition and cancer risks in women. The biannual surveys and sometimes clinical examinations of thousands of nurses have been in existence since 1976.

It is the world's most important longitudinal health study that has been running for 30 years.

The English name of the study has not found a generally recognized German translation. It expresses the composition and the main issue, namely the health of female caregivers. Sometimes the term Womans Health is also used for the study.

The first focus of the study was the question of the effect of the birth control pill on the risk of breast cancer.

Due to the size of the group of participants, numerous epidemiological data are now available. Recurring topics of the evaluations are nutrition and various cancer risks, especially the risk of breast cancer , but also cardiovascular diseases and cognitive functions of aging women.

Study design of the two cohorts

There are now two cohorts (composition of the participants):

Cohort 1 from 1976 : approx. 122,000 35- to 55-year-old married nurses (170,000 had been written to) from 11 highly populated countries.

In 1980 the first questionnaire on eating habits was used. Thereafter, these were collected every four years, the demographic and other health data every two years. The response rate was over 90%. This showed that the basic assumption that nurses are good at motivating follow-up visits and repeat examinations was correct. 33,000 blood samples were collected in 1989–1990.

Cohort 2 from 1989 onwards : Women who had already taken the pill as adolescents were particularly considered. Approximately 117,000 25 to 42 year old married nurses (125,000 had been targeted. Approximately 123,000 replied to the first letter to 517,000, 24%). After excluding the incompletely answered questionnaires, 116,686 participants remained in this cohort ( Nurses' Health Study II ). Here, too, around 30,000 blood samples were collected in the 1990s and participation in the repeat examinations was over 90% in each case. Due to the large number, the statistical representativeness of the results is still ensured even with the usual dropouts (non-participation in follow-up appointments) in the case of a long study .

Involved persons and institutions

The two doctors Frank E. Speizer and Walter C. Willett are considered to be the founders.

Participating institutions are Harvard Medical School , Harvard School of Public Health , Brigham and Women's Hospital , Dana-Farber Cancer Institute , Children's Hospital Boston , Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Channing Laboratory.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health , an agency of the US Department of Health .

Examples of questions, findings

The following examples of questions, findings or partial results from the study should be interpreted carefully. The English "findings" describes the results.

On the basis of which participation numbers was the statement made? What was it in the original (because quotations that have not been checked are often shortened “sensationally”)? Does the research group name connections or a cause-effect relationship?

Stroke and vegetables

The study, in which 75,596 nurses were observed for 14 years, showed that consumption of vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables and citrus fruits and their juices, was less likely to have a stroke .

Fiber and colon cancer

The fiber thesis of many nutritionists claims: fiber protects against colon cancer . This thesis has not yet been proven. Even Nurses' Health with 76,947 over 16 years observed nurses showed no clear relationship between dietary fiber intake and colon cancer.

Vegetables and fruits and cardiovascular diseases

On November 2, 2004, the CNN news agency reported that data from the large epidemiological studies Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study showed that a high consumption of fruits and vegetables - as is common with vegetarians - a statistically significant, caused a small protective effect against cardiovascular diseases . The Nurses' Health Study examined 71,910 nurses and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study examined 37,725 male doctors.

See also

literature

  • CF Belanger, CH Hennekens, B. Rosner, FE Speizer: The nurses' health study . In: The American Journal of Nursing . tape 78 , no. 6 , June 1, 1978, ISSN  0002-936X , p. 1039-1040 , PMID 248266 .
  • Overview of the individual publications from the study (1978–2005).
  • Kyungwon Oh, Frank B. Hu, JoAnn E. Manson, Meir J. Stampfer, Walter C. Willett: Dietary fat intake and risk of coronary heart disease in women. 20 years of follow-up of the nurses' health study . In: American Journal of Epidemiology . tape 161 , no. 7 , April 1, 2005, ISSN  0002-9262 , p. 672-679 , doi : 10.1093 / aje / kwi085 , PMID 15781956 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Stiftung Warentest : Plant substances: Protection against stroke. In: test . 8/2000.
  2. Eva-Maria Schnurr: The legend of dietary fiber. In: The time . / ZEIT Wissen, 05/2006, August 16, 2006, pp. 20–21. The article shows the methodological problems of such statements.
  3. Hsin-Chia Hung, Kaumudi J. Joshipura, Rui Jiang, Frank B. Hu, David Hunter, Stephanie A. Smith-Warner, Graham A. Colditz, Bernard Rosner, Donna Spiegelman, Walter C. Willett: Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Risk of Major Chronic Disease . In: Journal of the National Cancer Institute . tape 96 , no. 21 , November 3, 2004, pp. 1577–1584 , doi : 10.1093 / jnci / djh296 (English, oxfordjournals.org ): “Our findings suggest that high consumption of fruits and vegetables, especially of green leafy vegetables, is associated with a small reduction in risk of major chronic disease. This risk reduction was due primarily to a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease. We found no association between fruit and vegetable intake (either total or of any particular group) and overall cancer incidence. "
  4. Report vegetarisch-geniessen.com ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from No. 01/05. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vegetarisch-geniessen.com