Postnatal Growth Trajectories and Risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Middle Age: A Cohort Study.

Study Objectives: Rapid growth in childhood predisposes to obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood. While obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is bidirectionally linked to obesity, its developmental origins are sparsely studied. We examined associations between postnatal growth and the risk of OSA in adulthood.

Programming of cardiac metabolism by miR-15b-5p, a miRNA released in cardiac extracellular vesicles following ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Objective: We investigated the potential involvement of miRNAs in the developmental programming of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) by maternal obesity.

Methods: Serum miRNAs were measured in individuals from the Helsinki Birth Cohort (with known maternal body mass index), and a mouse model was used to determine causative effects of maternal obesity during pregnancy and ischemia-reperfusion on offspring cardiac miRNA expression and release.

Results: miR-15b-5p levels were increased in the sera of males born to mothers with higher BMI and in the hearts of adult mice born to obese dams.

Echocardiography protocol and cardiometabolic phenotyping in Indian birth cohorts-the IndEcho study.

Background: Asian Indians are at higher risk of cardiometabolic disease compared to other ethnic groups, and the age of onset is typically younger. Cardiac structure and function are poorly characterized in this ethnic group. In this study, we describe image-acquisition methods and the reproducibility of measurements and detailed echocardiography characteristics in two large Indian population-based cohorts (the New Delhi and Vellore Birth Cohorts) from India.

The Long-Term Consequences of Early Life Exposure to Tsunami and Conflict on Adolescents in Sri Lanka.

The consequences for adolescent health due to early life exposure to natural disasters combined with war are not known. We collected data from adolescents aged 12-13 years in Sri Lanka whose mothers were pregnant during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 in a tsunami-affected region (n = 22), conflict-affected region (n = 35), conflict-plus-tsunami-affected region (n = 29), or controls in areas unaffected by either (n = 24). Adjusted body mass index (BMI)-for-age z-scores were 1.

Comparison of Weight for Height and BMI for Age for Estimating Overnutrition Burden in Under-Five Populations With High Stunting Prevalence.

Background: Overnourished under-five children are anthro-pometrically classified as either being at possible risk of over-weight, overweight or obese and defined so, when either weight for height or body mass index for age (BMI-for-age) are >1SD to 2SD, >2SD to 3SD and >3SD, respectively of the analogous World Health Organization standards.

Aim: To compare weight for height and BMI for age definitions for quantifying overnutrition burden.

Methods: Theoretical consequences of ignoring age were evaluated by comparing, at varying height for age z-scores, the age- and sex-specific cutoffs of BMI that would define overnutrition with these two metrics.

Conditional wealth to estimate association of wealth mobility with health and human capital in low- and middle-income country cohorts.

Temporally harmonized asset indices allow the study of changes in relative wealth (mean, variance, social mobility) over time and its association with adult health and human capital in cohort studies. Conditional measures are the unexplained residuals of an indicator regressed on its past values. Using such measures, previously used to study the relative importance of key life stages for anthropometric growth, we can identify specific life stages during which changes in relative wealth are important for adult health in longitudinal studies.

Peri-conceptional diet patterns and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus in South Indian women.

Objective: To identify peri-conceptional diet patterns among women in Bangalore and examine their associations with risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

Design: BAngalore Nutrition Gestational diabetes LifEstyle Study, started in June 2016, was a prospective observational study, in which women were recruited at 5-16 weeks' gestation. Peri-conceptional diet was recalled at recruitment, using a validated 224-item FFQ.

Effects of early-life poverty on health and human capital in children and adolescents: analyses of national surveys and birth cohort studies in LMICs.

The survival and nutrition of children and, to a lesser extent, adolescents have improved substantially in the past two decades. Improvements have been linked to the delivery of effective biomedical, behavioural, and environmental interventions; however, large disparities exist between and within countries. Using data from 95 national surveys in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), we analyse how strongly the health, nutrition, and cognitive development of children and adolescents are related to early-life poverty.

Health and development from preconception to 20 years of age and human capital.

Optimal health and development from preconception to adulthood are crucial for human flourishing and the formation of human capital. The Nurturing Care Framework, as adapted to age 20 years, conceptualises the major influences during periods of development from preconception, through pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence that affect human capital. In addition to mortality in children younger than 5 years, stillbirths and deaths in 5-19-year-olds are important to consider.

Preterm birth and infant diurnal cortisol regulation.

Background: Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis adaptation is a potential mechanism linking early life exposures with later adverse health. This study tested the hypothesis that preterm birth is associated with adaptation of diurnal cortisol regulation across infancy.

Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted of saliva cortisol measured morning, midday and evening, monthly, across infancy, as part of a birth cohort conducted in Linköping, Sweden.

Saliva cortisol diurnal variation and stress responses in term and preterm infants.

Objective: To determine if preterm birth is associated with adaptation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and whether HPA axis programming relates to the degree of prematurity (defined as extremely preterm birth at <28 weeks or very preterm birth at 28-32 weeks gestation).

Design: This study reports findings from a prospective birth cohort. Saliva cortisol concentrations were measured prevaccination and postvaccination, and in the morning and evening, at 4 months chronological age.

The effect of wasting and stunting during severe acute malnutrition in infancy on insulin sensitivity and insulin clearance in adult life.

Adults who had non-edematous severe acute malnutrition (SAM) during infancy (i.e., marasmus) have worse glucose tolerance and beta-cell function than survivors of edematous SAM (i.

Weight-for-height is associated with an overestimation of thinness burden in comparison to BMI-for-age in under-5 populations with high stunting prevalence.

Background: Thinness at <5 years of age, also known as wasting, is used to assess the nutritional status of populations for programmatic purposes. Thinness may be defined when either weight-for-height or body-mass-index-for-age (BMI-for-age) are below -2 SD of the respective World Health Organization standards. These definitions were compared for quantifying the burden of thinness.

The haematology of Jamaicans: red cell indices in HbAA, HbAS, HbAC, and HbA-HPFH genotypes.

Based in the parish of Manchester in central Jamaica, the Manchester Project offered free detection of haemoglobin genotype to senior classes in 15 secondary schools between 2008 and 2013. Restricting the database to 15,103 students aged 15.0-19.

Early Life Influences on Hearing in Adulthood: a Systematic Review and Two-Step Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis.

Objectives: Adverse prenatal and early childhood development may increase susceptibility of hearing loss in adulthood. The objective was to assess whether indices of early development are associated with adult-onset hearing loss in adults ≥18 years.

Design: In a systematic review and meta-analysis, four electronic databases were searched for studies reporting associations between indices of early development (birth weight and adult height) and adult-onset hearing loss in adults ≥18 years.

Size at birth, lifecourse factors, and cognitive function in late life: findings from the MYsore study of Natal effects on Ageing and Health (MYNAH) cohort in South India.

Objective: To examine if smaller size at birth, an indicator of growth restriction in utero, is associated with lower cognition in late life, and whether this may be mediated by impaired early life brain development and/or adverse cardiometabolic programming.

Design: Longitudinal follow-up of a birth cohort.

Setting: CSI Holdsworth Memorial Hospital (HMH), Mysore South India.

Poor In Utero Growth, and Reduced β-Cell Compensation and High Fasting Glucose From Childhood, Are Harbingers of Glucose Intolerance in Young Indians.

Objective: India is a double world capital of early-life undernutrition and type 2 diabetes. We aimed to characterize life course growth and metabolic trajectories in those developing glucose intolerance as young adults in the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS).

Research Design And Methods: PMNS is a community-based intergenerational birth cohort established in 1993, with serial information on parents and children through pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence.

Childhood Head Growth and Educational Attainment in an Indian Cohort.

Background: There is minimal information about the association of head growth at different stages of childhood with cognitive ability.

Objective: To determine the relationship of newborn head size and head growth during infancy, childhood and adolescence with attained education, a proxy for cognitive ability.

Study Design: Prospective birth cohort study.

Distinct opposing associations of upper and lower body fat depots with metabolic and cardiovascular disease risk markers.

Background: To examine the associations of total and regional adiposity with metabolic and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk markers.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 1080 (53.8% men, aged 39-44 years) individuals from South India.

Wah Soon Chow, a teacher, a friend and a colleague.

To finish this special issue, some friends, colleagues and students of Prof. Chow (Emeritus Professor, the Research School of Biology, the Australian National University) have written small tributes to acknowledge not only his eminent career but to describe his wonderful personality.

Intergenerational change in anthropometry of children and adolescents in the New Delhi Birth Cohort.

Background: A comparison of the anthropometry of children and adolescents with that of their parents at the same age may provide a more precise measure of intergenerational changes in linear growth and body mass index (BMI).

Methods: New Delhi Birth Cohort participants (F1), born between 1969 and 1972, were followed up for anthropometry at birth and at 6-monthly intervals until 21 years of age. At variable intervals 1447 children, aged 0-19 years (F2) and born to 818 F1 participants, were measured (weight and height), providing 2236 sets of anthropometries.

Consequences of ignoring clustering in linear regression.

Background: Clustering of observations is a common phenomenon in epidemiological and clinical research. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of using multilevel analysis to account for such clustering, but in practice, methods ignoring clustering are often employed. We used simulated data to explore the circumstances in which failure to account for clustering in linear regression could lead to importantly erroneous conclusions.