Background. Despite considerable efforts, health disparities between people with high and low socioeconomic status (SES) have not changed over the past decades in The Netherlands. To create a culture of health and an environment in which all people can flourish, a shift in focus is needed from disease management towards health promotion. The Bolk model for Positive Health and Living Environment ...

Introduction: Major life changing events such as the COVID-19 pandemic may have major impact on one’s health and general well-being. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and predictive factors, including gender specifc diferences, of Complementary Medicine (CM) use (including CM consultations, self-care management and self-help techniques) during the frst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in ...

In western industrialised societies, asymptomatic individuals are increasingly labelled as at-risk of future illness and targeted for public health interventions. These at-risk people are identified through health checks, population studies and national screening programs. The main purpose of communicating such risk to individuals is to motivate them to make lifestyle changes. Many of these risk-labels ...

Background: A healthy diet throughout the life course improves health and reduces the risk of disease. There is a need for new knowledge of the relation between diet and health, but existing methods to collect information on food and nutrient intake have their limitations. Evaluations of new tools to assess dietary intake are needed, especially in old people, where the introduction of new technology ...

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Denmark introduced repeated lockdowns of society, including outreach services and visits from social workers for people living with mental illnesses. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, in this article we explore how people with mental illness react to and manage their lives amid COVID-19 mitigations, focusing on how they experience and negotiate vulnerability at ...

Background and objective: Andrographis paniculata (AP) is a traditionally used herbaceous plant, whose main active constituent is andrographolide. Andrographolide derivative medications and herbal preparations of AP are often used to treat respiratory tract infections. This study aims to systematically evaluate the safety of andrographolide derivative medications and herbal preparations of AP ...

Hjerteinfarkt og atrieflimmer er ledende årsaker til mortalitet og morbiditet globalt (1). Det norske dødsårsaksregisteret viser imidlertid at risiko for å dø av hjerte- og kar- sykdommer er mer enn halvert fra år 2000 til 2016 (2). Mannsverk et al. viste i 2012 at nedgangen i mortalitet av koronarsykdom i Tromsø skyldes en nedgang i insidens (3). Senere ble det vist at 66 % av nedgangen ...

Ethnicity clusters individuals with shared characteristics and is a common variable in epidemiology. Often it is not specified what is meant by a given ethnicity or what characteristics ethnicity entails in the different contexts. In public health research, ethnicity can be viewed as a non-modifiable risk factor of disease because modifying the ethnic composition in a population is not meaningful, ...

Background: The role of obesity and weight change in breast-cancer development is complex and incompletely understood. We investigated long-term weight change and breast-cancer risk by body mass index (BMI) at age 20 years, menopausal status, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and hormone-receptor status.<p><p> Methods: Using data on weight collected at three different time points from women ...

It is a common belief that weather affects pain. Therefore, we hypothesized that weather can affect pain tolerance. This study used data from over 18,000 subjects aged 40 years or older from the general population, who participated in the Tromsø Study 7. They underwent a one-time assessment of cuff algometry pressure pain tolerance (PPT) and cold pain tolerance (CPT), tested with a cold pressor test. ...