Nutritional status, hospitalization and mortality among patients with sickle cell anemia in Tanzania.

Background: Reduced growth is common in children with sickle cell anemia, but few data exist on associations with long-term clinical course. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of malnutrition at enrollment into a hospital-based cohort and whether poor nutritional status predicted morbidity and mortality within an urban cohort of Tanzanian sickle cell anemia patients.

Design And Methods: Anthropometry was conducted at enrollment into the sickle cell anemia cohort (n=1,618; ages 0.

Measuring abdominal adipose tissue: comparison of simpler methods with MRI.

Objective: This cross-sectional study compares the relationship of visceral and total abdominal adipose tissue (VAT and TAAT) measurements obtained with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a range of 'simpler' techniques suitable for field or bedside use: BMI, waist circumference (WC), bioelectrical impedance (BIA) devices and dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).

Method: 120 participants were recruited, stratified by gender and BMI (20 men and 20 women within each group: lean, overweight and obese). Measurements included height, weight, WC (at midpoint), DXA L2-L4 fat, and BIA (two whole-body and one abdominal device).

Impact of fatty acid status on immune function of children in low-income countries.

In vitro and animal studies point to numerous mechanisms by which fatty acids, especially long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA), can modulate the innate and adaptive arms of the immune system. These data strongly suggest that improving the fatty acid supply of young children in low-income countries might have immune benefits. Unfortunately, there have been virtually no studies of fatty acid/immune interactions in such settings.

Sex differences in the vaccine-specific and non-targeted effects of vaccines.

Vaccines have non-specific effects (NSE) on subsequent morbidity and mortality from non-vaccine related infectious diseases. Thus NSE refers to any effect that cannot be accounted for by the induction of immunity against the vaccine-targeted disease. These effects are sex-differential, generally being more pronounced in females than males.

[Anthropometry as predictor of gestational diabetes mellitus].

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a high incidence disease. Easily measured predictor factors could help to implement preventive policies and early detection tests.

Aim: To measure recognizable risk factors for GDM such as skinfolds and analyze the association between these factors and the development of GDM in a cohort of pregnant women.

Helicobacter pylori infection and circulating ghrelin levels - a systematic review.

Background: The nature of the association between ghrelin, an orexigenic hormone produced mainly in the stomach, and Helicobacter pylori (H pylori), a bacterium that colonises the stomach, is still controversial. We examined available evidence to determine whether an association exists between the two; and if one exists, in what direction.

Methods: We reviewed original English language studies on humans reporting circulating ghrelin levels in H pylori infected and un-infected participants; and circulating ghrelin levels before and after H pylori eradication.

Season of conception in rural gambia affects DNA methylation at putative human metastable epialleles.

Throughout most of the mammalian genome, genetically regulated developmental programming establishes diverse yet predictable epigenetic states across differentiated cells and tissues. At metastable epialleles (MEs), conversely, epigenotype is established stochastically in the early embryo then maintained in differentiated lineages, resulting in dramatic and systemic interindividual variation in epigenetic regulation. In the mouse, maternal nutrition affects this process, with permanent phenotypic consequences for the offspring.

Environmental enteropathy: new targets for nutritional interventions.

In the developing world major public health issues such as malnutrition and compromised physical development are intimately linked to altered gut morphology and function with underlying chronic inflammatory responses. In these societies the downward spiral of malnutrition and infections does not seem to be remedied by well-informed nutritional interventions that supplement the identified nutrient deficiencies, suggesting that additional strategies are needed. The aim of this scientific opinion paper is to consider how a child from the developing world might benefit, separately and additively, from interventions targeted to impact hygiene, nutritional status, disease resistance and gut function, if successful interventions could be found.

The dynamics of nasopharyngeal streptococcus pneumoniae carriage among rural Gambian mother-infant pairs.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae is an important cause of community acquired pneumonia, sepsis, meningitis and otitis media globally and has been incriminated as a major cause of serious childhood bacterial infections in The Gambia. Better understanding of the dynamics of transmission and carriage will inform control strategies.

Methods: This study was conducted among 196 mother-infant pairs recruited at birth from six villages in the West Kiang region of The Gambia.

Haptoglobin and sickle cell polymorphisms and risk of active trachoma in Gambian children.

Background: Susceptibility and resistance to trachoma, the leading infectious cause of blindness, have been associated with a range of host genetic factors. In vitro studies of the causative organism, Chlamydia trachomatis, demonstrate that iron availability regulates its growth, suggesting that host genes involved in regulating iron status and/or availability may modulate the risk of trachoma. The objective was to investigate whether haptoglobin (Hp) haplotypes constructed from the functional polymorphism (Hp1/Hp2) plus the functional promoter SNPs -61A-C (rs5471) and -101C-G (rs5470), or sickle cell trait (HbAS, rs334) were associated with risk of active trachoma when stratified by age and sex, in rural Gambian children.

Breast milk sodium content in rural Gambian women: between- and within-women variation in the first 6 months after delivery.

It has been suggested that infancy is a particularly sensitive period with respect to the effect of dietary sodium on future risk of hypertension. One difficulty of researching the effects of early sodium intake on later health is accurately measuring sodium intake from breast milk. In observational studies, sodium content has been calculated by estimating breast milk volume consumed and assuming a fixed sodium concentration for all women at all times (a standardised measure).

Validity of a new abdominal bioelectrical impedance device to measure abdominal and visceral fat: comparison with MRI.

Abdominal fat, and in particular, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), is the critical fat depot associated with metabolic aberrations. At present, VAT can only be accurately measured by computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study was designed to compare a new abdominal bioelectrical impedance (BIA) device against total abdominal adipose tissue (TAAT) and VAT area measurements made from an abdominal MRI scan, and to assess its reliability and accuracy.

Landscape analysis of interactions between nutrition and vaccine responses in children.

The world's poorest children are likely to be malnourished when receiving their childhood vaccines. It is uncertain whether this affects vaccine efficacy and whether the coadministration of nutrient supplements with vaccines has beneficial or detrimental effects. More recently, a detrimental interaction between vitamin A (VA) supplementation (VAS) and the killed diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine given in early childhood has been suggested.

Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and the evolutionary paradox of the polycystic ovary syndrome: a fertility first hypothesis.

Worldwide, the high prevalence of the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a heritable cause of ovarian infertility, is an evolutionary paradox, which provides insight into the susceptibility of well-fed human populations to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. We propose that PCOS, Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and the Metabolic Syndrome are modern phenotypic expressions of a metabolic genotype attuned to the dietary and energetic conditions of the Pleistocene. This metabolic "Fertility First" rather than "Thrifty" genotype persisted at high prevalence throughout the entire agrarian period-from around 12,000 years ago until 1800 AD-primarily, we contend, because it conferred a fertility advantage in an environment defined by chronic and often severe seasonal food shortage.

Mortality in HIV infection is independently predicted by host iron status and SLC11A1 and HP genotypes, with new evidence of a gene-nutrient interaction.

Background: Iron-related genes and iron status may independently contribute to variable HIV outcomes. The nature of the biologically plausible gene-nutrient interaction remains unknown.

Objectives: The objectives were to investigate whether iron-related genotypes and clinically abnormal iron status independently predict mortality in HIV and whether a gene-nutrient interaction exists.

Common polymorphic variation in the genetically diverse African insulin gene and its association with size at birth.

The insulin variable number of tandem repeats (INS VNTR) has been variably associated with size at birth in non-African populations. Small size at birth is a major determinant of neonatal mortality, so the INS VNTR may influence survival. We tested the hypothesis, therefore, that genetic variation around the INS VNTR in a rural Gambian population, who experience seasonal variation in nutrition and subsequently birth weight, may be associated with foetal and early growth.

Obesity in emerging nations: evolutionary origins and the impact of a rapid nutrition transition.

Here we explore whether there is any evidence that the rapid development of the obesity epidemic in emerging nations, and its unusual coexistence with malnutrition, may have evolutionary origins that make such populations especially vulnerable to the obesogenic conditions accompanying the nutrition transition. It is concluded that any selection of so-called 'thrifty genes' is likely to have affected most races due to the frequency and ubiquity of famines and seasonal food shortages in ancient populations. Although it remains a useful stimulus for research, the thrifty gene hypothesis remains a theoretical construct that so far lacks any concrete examples.

Regional case studies--Africa.

Africa is the final continent to be affected by the nutrition transition and, as elsewhere, is characterized by the paradoxical coexistence of malnutrition and obesity. Several features of the obesity epidemic in Africa mirror those in other emerging nations: it penetrates the richer nations and urban areas first with a strong urban- rural gradient; initially it affects the wealthy, but later there is a demographic switch as obesity becomes a condition more associated with poverty, and it shares many of the same drivers related to the increasing affordability of highly refined oils and carbohydrates, and a move away from subsistence farm work and towards sedentary lifestyles. Africa also has some characteristics of the obesity epidemic that stand out from other regions such as: (1) excepting some areas of the Pacific, Africa is probably the only region in which obesity (especially among women) is viewed culturally as a positive and desirable trait, leading to major gender differences in obesity rates in many countries; (2) most of Africa has very low rates of obesity in children, and to date African obesity is mostly an adult syndrome; (3) Africans seem genetically prone to higher rates of diabetes and hypertension in association with obesity than Caucasians, but seem to be relatively protected from dislipidemias; (4) the case-specific deaths and disabilities from diabetes and hypertension in Africa are very high due to the paucity of health services and the strain that the 'double burden' of disease places on health systems.

FTO gene variation and measures of body mass in an African population.

Background: Variation in the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene has been reproducibly associated with body mass index (BMI) and obesity in populations of White European origin. Data from Asians and African-Americans is less conclusive.

Methods: We assessed the effect of 16 FTO polymorphisms on body mass in a large population of predominantly lean Gambians (N(max) 2208) participating in a long-term surveillance program providing contemporary and early-life anthropometric measurements.

Iron metabolism, malaria, and other infections: what is all the fuss about?

This article briefly describes how iron lies at the center of a host-pathogen battle for nutrients and why there are many theoretical reasons to suspect that administration of supplemental iron might predispose to infection. This is supported by in vitro and small animal studies, but meta-analysis of human epidemiological and intervention studies has found little evidence for most disease outcomes. Supplemental iron does appear to increase susceptibility to malaria as measured by a variety of malariometric indices.