Prenatal growth and early postnatal influences on adult motor cortical excitability.

Objective: Suboptimal prenatal growth may adversely influence motor neurophysiologic development and predispose the individual to greater risk of neurodegenerative disorders in later life. We investigated the influences of prenatal growth and the postnatal environment on motor cortical function in young adults.

Methods: Transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to construct corticospinal stimulus-response curves for 35 young adults (mean age: 28 +/- 0.

Gender differences in the relationship between leptin, insulin resistance and the autonomic nervous system.

Objectives: Leptin, an important hormonal regulator of body weight, has been shown to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) in vitro although the physiological relevance remains unclear. Increased SNS activity has been implicated in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and an increased cardiovascular risk. We have therefore investigated the relationship between leptin, insulin resistance and cardiac autonomic activity in healthy young adults.

Gender differences in the insulin-like growth factor axis response to a glucose load.

Aims: The insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) are thought to contribute to glucose homeostasis. The aim of our study was to examine the response of the IGFs and their binding proteins to an intravenous load of glucose in a cohort of young men and women with normal glucose tolerance.

Methods: The intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) was used to quantify insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion in 160 adults aged 20-21 years in Adelaide, Australia.

A common mitchondrial DNA variant is associated with thinness in mothers and their 20-yr-old offspring.

A common mitochondrial (mt)DNA variant that is maternally inherited, the 16189 variant, is associated with type 2 diabetes and thinness at birth. To elucidate the association of the variant with thinness, we studied the 16189 variant in a well-characterized Australian cohort (n = 161) who were followed up from birth to age 20 yr. PCR analysis and mtDNA haplotyping was carried out on DNA from 161 offspring from consecutive, normal, singleton pregnancies followed from birth to age 20 yr.

Size at birth and cardiovascular responses to psychological stressors: evidence for prenatal programming in women.

Background: Epidemiological studies have repeatedly shown inverse associations between size at birth and blood pressure in later life. There is some evidence to suggest that exaggerated blood pressure responses to psychological stressors are a forerunner of sustained hypertension.

Objective: To determine whether individuals who were smaller at birth have greater blood pressure and heart rate responses to psychological stressors.

Predicting obesity in early adulthood from childhood and parental obesity.

Objective: To determine the degree of tracking of adiposity from childhood to early adulthood, and the risk of overweight in early adulthood associated with overweight in childhood and parental weight status in a cohort of children born in the mid-1970s.

Design: Longitudinal observational study.

Subjects: Approximately 155 healthy boys and girls born in Adelaide, South Australia, 1975-1976 and their parents.

Does fat intake predict adiposity in healthy children and adolescents aged 2--15 y? A longitudinal analysis.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between food energy and macronutrient intake and body fatness assessed up to seven times between 2 and 15 y of age.

Design: Prospective, observational study. Generalised linear estimating equations were used to evaluate the longitudinal relationship between body fatness and macronutrient intake.

The impact of fetal size and length of gestation on 6-sulphatoxymelatonin excretion in adult life.

Recent studies have shown that intrauterine growth retardation or fetal distress in human infants is associated with a pronounced reduction in melatonin secretion during the first 3 months of life. It is not known whether these associations persist beyond infancy. We have therefore examined the relationship between birthsize and melatonin secretion in 159 men and women aged 20, born in Adelaide, South Australia.

Alcohol consumption and insulin resistance in young adults.

Background: Alcohol may have a cardioprotective effect. One possible mechanism is by reducing insulin resistance, a known cardiovascular risk factor. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between alcohol consumption, insulin resistance and other parameters determining glucose tolerance in 154 young men and women.

Fetal growth and the physiological control of glucose tolerance in adults: a minimal model analysis.

Although there is now substantial evidence linking low birthweight with impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes in adult life, the extent to which reduced fetal growth is associated with impaired insulin sensitivity, defective insulin secretion, or a combination of both factors is not clear. We have therefore examined the relationships between birth size and both insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion as assessed by an intravenous glucose tolerance test with minimal model analysis in 163 men and women, aged 20 yr, born at term in Adelaide, South Australia. Birth size did not correlate with body mass index or fat distribution in men or women.

Reduced foetal growth and growth hormone secretion in adult life.

Objectives: Recent studies suggest that growth restriction or other adverse influences acting in utero or during early infancy lead to permanent alterations in growth hormone (GH) secretion. As GH secretion is known to predict cardiovascular risk, alterations in GH may contribute to the association between reduced foetal growth and cardiovascular disease. We have therefore assessed the relationship between birth size and GH secretion in a prospective study of young adults whose birth size was recorded and who have had their current blood pressure and glucose tolerance measured.

The relationship between birth weight and blood pressure amplifies from childhood to adulthood.

Objective: To investigate relationships between birth characteristics and blood pressure at age 20 years and to assess whether effects of birth weight on blood pressure are amplified from childhood to adulthood.

Design: A longitudinal study of 584 men and women from Adelaide, Australia, examined previously at 8 years and followed up at age 20 years.

Results: Birth weight was negatively associated with systolic pressure at age 20 years in men (regression coefficient 2.

The autonomic control of heart rate and insulin resistance in young adults.

The pathophysiology of insulin resistance is unclear. A link between increased heart rate (HR) and insulin resistance suggests an association with sympathetic nervous system activity. To further evaluate this, we examined autonomic activity using spectral analysis of HR variability (HRV), which provides a measure of cardiac sympathovagal modulation, and related this to insulin sensitivity (Si) in 137 men and women (20 yr old).

Bone growth from 11 to 17 years: relationship to growth, gender and changes with pubertal status including timing of menarche.

The tempo and change in bone growth during puberty in relation to physical growth is described in a cohort of 56 boys and 52 girls. Distal forearm bone width, mineral content and volumetric density, anthropometry and pubertal status were measured at ages 11, 13, 15 and 17 y, and bone age at 17 y. Bone width and mineral content increased independently with age for each pubertal stage.

Placental weight, birth measurements, and blood pressure at age 8 years.

Objective: To examine relationships between blood pressure during childhood and both placental weight and body size at birth, in an Australian population.

Design: A follow up study of a birth cohort, undertaken when cohort members were aged 8 years.

Setting: Adelaide, South Australia.

Health promotion using television in hospital waiting rooms: the Adelaide Children's Parent Education Project.

Objectives: The Adelaide Children's Hospital Parent Education Project was designed to determine the effect of the screening of health promotion programmes via closed circuit television facilities in hospital waiting rooms on parents' knowledge of child health issues.

Methodology: A knowledge test was constructed with an internal consistency co-efficient of 0.95 and used to identify target groups of parents with low knowledge.

Serum lipids and apolipoproteins from 1 to 15 years: changes with age and puberty, and relationships with diet, parental cholesterol and family history of ischaemic heart disease.

We describe the pattern of change for serum lipids and apolipoproteins from 1 to 15 years of age in a cohort of 128 children, supplemented with 215 children from 11 years of age and 243 at 13 years of age. Total cholesterol (TC) decreased after infancy, increased in early puberty and then decreased to 15 years of age. Reciprocal changes in high (HDLC) and low (LDLC) density lipoprotein cholesterol occurred during each interval, with HDLC increasing from 13 to 15 years in both sexes.

Tracking of serum lipids and dietary energy, fat and calcium intake from 1 to 15 years.

We describe the results of tracking serum lipids, and dietary intake of energy, fat and calcium in a cohort of 106 children in the Adelaide Nutrition Study who were followed to 15 years of age together with an additional 123 children recruited from 11 years of age. Measures of energy, fat and calcium intakes were obtained from analyses of 4-day weighed records. The pattern and level of tracking were similar for males and females.

A profile of heart disease risk factors and their relation to parents' education, fathers' occupation and family history of heart disease in 843 South Australian families: the Adelaide Children's WHO Collaborative Study.

Objective: A study was conducted to determine whether the prevalence of risk factors among pre-adolescent children is associated with their parents' risk factor status and what influence family history of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and socio-economic status (SES) had.

Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study of 856 children, mean age 8.6 years, and their parents who underwent the World Health Organization and National Heart Foundation protocols for the study of arteriosclerosis precursors.

Work-related stress and depression among practicing emergency physicians: an international study.

Study Objective: To compare the levels of work-related stress and depression reported by practicing emergency physicians in three survey sites and to determine the effects of gender and marital status on the stress and depression experienced by these physicians.

Design: Cross-sectional mail surveys.

Setting And Participants: Seven hundred sixty-four practicing emergency physicians from the United States, 91 fellows in full-time practice from Australasia, and 154 consultants and 47 senior registrars from the United Kingdom.