Assessment of the health status in the Massa Lombarda cohort: a preliminary description of the program evaluating cardio-cerebro-vascular disease risk factors and quality of life in an elderly population.

The Massa Lombarda program (MLP) is the first step of a European multi-center program, promoted and coordinated from Bologna University's Academic Spin off Health Research and Development, which attempts to manage advanced sanitary research in general population. The -instant individual definition (IID) study is the first phase of the program concerning the study of risk factors (RF) and early diagnosis of coronary heart disease (CHD), through a new diagnostic technology called myocardial perfusion scoring system (MPS). The study consists of a longitudinal observational epidemiological investigation of adult population (above 25 years of age) resident in Massa Lombarda (Ravenna), with the survey of social and biological parameters. The elderly part of the population (1000 subjects above 75 years) was submitted to a more complex analysis, as part of the study on health status in European aging populations, aimed at revealing the determinants influencing the healthy aging, and at identifying their impact on mortality, cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity, disability and decline of quality of life. Laboratory analyses were aimed at identifying the following factors: (i) Genetic markers related to pro-and anti-inflammatory cytokine- codifying genes. (ii) Oxidative stress-involved molecules, and inflammation-involved genes, and more in general genes involved in the brittleness (ApoE). (iii) Appraising the degree of interaction with non-genetic factors, like measurable immunological markers in the peripheral blood, markers of reactions to oxidative stress, evaluation of metabolic parameters. Moreover, old population is expected to answer the questionnaires for evaluation of the dietary habits, physical activity, self-sufficiency, cognitive ability, motor coordination, perceived stress and social relationships.