Aims

To examine the association between changes in procoagulants (fibrinogen factors VII and VIII and von Willebrand factor) and the risk of insulin resistance.

Methods

Using data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, we followed 2398 black and white adults without diabetes, aged 25-37 years at year 7, to year 20. Levels of fibrinogen factors VII and VIII and von Willebrand factor were divided in tertiles (low/middle/high) at years 7 and 20 and four groups reflecting changes were defined: 'low' (low at years 7 and 20), 'stable' (low/middle at years 7 and 20, but not both low at years 7 and 20), 'high' (high at year 7 and low/middle at year 20; or low/middle at year 7 and high at year 20) and 'highest' (high at years 7 and 20). Linear regression models were used to evaluate 13-year changes (year 20-year 7) in fibrinogen level and factors VII, VIII and von Willebrand change groups in relation to insulin resistance measures.

Results

Homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (year 20) and changes in log homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (year 20-year 7) were significantly associated with the 13-year increase in fibrinogen (P < 0.001). Compared with participants in the low group, those in the high group had significantly higher levels of homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (year 20) and changes in homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (year 20-year 7) for fibrinogen factor VII and von Willebrand factor (P < 0.017). No significant associations were observed between fibrinogen VIII and insulin resistance measures.

Conclusions

An increase in fibrinogen level and persistently high levels of factor VII and von Willebrand factor are significantly associated with increased risk of insulin resistance. These findings provide new insight into the mechanisms to explain the heightened risk for thrombosis in adults with insulin resistance/diabetes.

Using two years of data from the NOvA Near Detector at Fermilab, we report a seasonal variation of cosmic ray induced multiple-muon (Nμ≥2) event rates which has an opposite phase to the seasonal variation in the atmospheric temperature. The strength of the seasonal multiple-muon variation is shown to increase as a function of the muon multiplicity. However, no significant dependence of the strength of the seasonal variation of the multiple-muon variation is seen as a function of the muon zenith angle, or the spatial or angular separation between the correlated muons.

Searches for a light sterile neutrino have been performed independently by the MINOS and the Daya Bay experiments using the muon (anti)neutrino and electron antineutrino disappearance channels, respectively. In this Letter, results from both experiments are combined with those from the Bugey-3 reactor neutrino experiment to constrain oscillations into light sterile neutrinos. The three experiments are sensitive to complementary regions of parameter space, enabling the combined analysis to probe regions allowed by the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) and MiniBooNE experiments in a minimally extended four-neutrino flavor framework. Stringent limits on sin^{2}2θ_{μe} are set over 6 orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting Δm_{41}^{2}. The sterile-neutrino mixing phase space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded for Δm_{41}^{2}<0.8  eV^{2} at 95%  CL_{s}.