TY - JOUR
T1 - Seasonality of blood neopterin levels in the Old Order Amish
AU - Mohyuddin, Hira
AU - Georgiou, Polymnia
AU - Wadhawan, Abhishek
AU - Daue, Melanie L.
AU - Brenner, Lisa A.
AU - Gragnoli, Claudia
AU - Saunders, Erika F.H.
AU - Fuchs, Dietmar
AU - Lowry, Christopher A.
AU - Postolache, Teodor T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health via the Mid-Atlantic Nutrition Obesity Research Center Pilot NORC grant preliminary/developmental offspring (TTP) of the parent grant P30 DK072488 (BDM). Additional support was provided, in part, by The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Distinguished Investigator Award (TTP), the Rocky Mountain MIRECC for Suicide Prevention, Denver, CO, USA, the Military and Veteran Microbiome Consortium for Research and Education (LAB, CAL, TTP) and the University of Maryland, College Park, Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their support through the cooperative agreement FDU.001418 (TTP). The seasonality questionnaires had been collected as part of a study of SAD in the Old Order Amish, funded by 1K18MH093940-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health (TTP). CG was supported by NICHD 5R01HD086911-02. The authors thank Alexandra Dagdag, Aline Dagdag and Dr. Gurkaron Nijjar for their help in proofreading this manuscript. The findings and conclusions in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions of the NIH, VA, FDA, or the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We thank the staff of the Amish Research Clinic of the University of Maryland for their overall support to the Amish community of Lancaster, PA, and the trainees of the Mood and Anxiety Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine for their help with references, mailings and data management.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
PY - 2017/12/20
Y1 - 2017/12/20
N2 - Seasonal changes in non-human animals and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in humans are associated with immune activation in winter relative to summer. We intended to measure seasonal variation in neopterin, a marker of cellular immunity, its interactions with gender and seasonality of mood. We studied 320 Amish from Lancaster, PA, USA (men=128; 40%) with an average age [Standard deviation (SD)] of 56.7 (13.9) years. Blood neopterin level was measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Seasonality was measured with Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Statistical analysis included analysis of covariance (ANCOVAs) and multivariate linear regression. We also investigated interactions of seasonal differences in neopterin with gender, seasonality scores and estimation of SAD diagnosis. We found a significantly higher neopterin level in winter than in summer (p=0.006). There were no significant gender or seasonality interactions. Our study confirmed the hypothesized higher neopterin level in winter. A cross sectional design was our major limitation. If this finding will be replicated by longitudinal studies in multiple groups, neopterin could be used to monitor immune status across seasons in demographically diverse samples, even if heterogeneous in gender distribution, degree of seasonality of mood.
AB - Seasonal changes in non-human animals and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in humans are associated with immune activation in winter relative to summer. We intended to measure seasonal variation in neopterin, a marker of cellular immunity, its interactions with gender and seasonality of mood. We studied 320 Amish from Lancaster, PA, USA (men=128; 40%) with an average age [Standard deviation (SD)] of 56.7 (13.9) years. Blood neopterin level was measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Seasonality was measured with Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Statistical analysis included analysis of covariance (ANCOVAs) and multivariate linear regression. We also investigated interactions of seasonal differences in neopterin with gender, seasonality scores and estimation of SAD diagnosis. We found a significantly higher neopterin level in winter than in summer (p=0.006). There were no significant gender or seasonality interactions. Our study confirmed the hypothesized higher neopterin level in winter. A cross sectional design was our major limitation. If this finding will be replicated by longitudinal studies in multiple groups, neopterin could be used to monitor immune status across seasons in demographically diverse samples, even if heterogeneous in gender distribution, degree of seasonality of mood.
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U2 - 10.1515/pterid-2017-0020
DO - 10.1515/pterid-2017-0020
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85038362519
VL - 28
SP - 163
EP - 176
JO - Pteridines
JF - Pteridines
SN - 0933-4807
IS - 3-4
ER -