Background: In mice, androgens downregulate Th2 cytokine responses, but whether androgen levels during pregnancy might influence the development of allergy in the offspring has not been studied.
Methods: In the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a population-based birth cohort of 14 541 pregnancies, we related maternal blood total testosterone during pregnancy, measured in a subset of the cohort, to allergic outcomes in the offspring, including asthma, hayfever, eczema (n=543) and wheezing (n=532) at 69-81 months, and atopy (positive skin prick test to Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, cat or grass, n=386) and blood total immunoglobulin E (IgE; n=314) at 7 years. We used logistic and linear regression to analyse binary outcomes and log-transformed IgE, respectively, controlling for potential confounders.
A conversion formula between Pauling and Mulliken electronegativities is derived from a new analytic treatment of the classic valence bond model for a single bond A-B in terms of Mulliken-Jaffe "a and b" parameters for the atomic valence states. The new formula works better than the traditional linear and half-power empirical formulas. The results are consistent with an absolute Pauling scale in which both electronegativities approach zero simultaneously.
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