Objectives: To determine if maternal prenatal infection increases risk of offspring postnatal infections through age 5 or diagnosis of respiratory allergy at age 5, independent of prenatal/postnatal antibiotic exposure. To evaluate if frequency of offspring infections mediates an association between prenatal infection and respiratory allergy at age 5.
Study Design: Secondary data analyses were performed from the Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS), a prospective, longitudinal birth cohort that enrolled pregnant women from 1959 to 1966 (N = 19,044 live births).
Background: Growing evidence suggests that liver disease originates in early life. Antihistamines cross the placenta and are frequently prescribed to pregnant women to treat nausea and vomiting, as well as allergy and asthma symptoms. Exposure to antihistamines in utero may impact the developing liver by reprogramming or inducing epigenetic changes in fetal hepatocytes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Autism spectrum disorder comprises a group of neurodevelopmental conditions currently diagnosed by behavioral assessment in childhood, although neuropathology begins during gestation. A poorly understood male bias for ASD diagnosis is thought to be due to both biological sex differences and cultural biases against female diagnosis of ASD. Identification of molecular biomarkers of ASD likelihood in newborns would provide more objective screening and early intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Accumulating evidence indicates that higher prenatal maternal inflammation is associated with increased depression risk in adolescent and adult-aged offspring. Prenatal maternal inflammation (PNMI) may increase the likelihood for offspring to have lower cognitive performance, which, in turn, may heighten risk for depression onset. Therefore, this study explored the potential mediating role of childhood cognitive performance in the relationship between PNMI and adolescent depressive symptoms in offspring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Psychosocial stressors have been linked with accelerated biological aging in adults; however, few studies have examined stressors across the life course in relation to biological aging.
Methods: In 359 individuals (57% White, 34% Black) from the Child Health and Development Studies Disparities study, economic (income, education, financial strain), social (parent-child relations, caretaker responsibilities) and traumatic (death of a sibling or child, violence exposure) stressors were assessed at multiple time points (birth and ages 9, 15, and 50 years). Experiences of major discrimination were assessed at age 50.
Importance: Prenatal maternal inflammation has been associated with major depressive disorder in offspring in adulthood as well as with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in childhood; however, the association between prenatal inflammation and offspring depression in adolescence has yet to be examined.
Objective: To determine whether maternal levels of inflammatory biomarkers during pregnancy are associated with depressive symptomatology in adolescent-aged offspring and to examine how gestational timing, offspring sex, and childhood psychiatric symptoms impact these associations.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This was an observational study of a population-based birth cohort from the Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS), which recruited almost all mothers receiving obstetric care from the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (KFHP) in Alameda County, California, between June 1959 and September 1966.
A prospective metabolome-wide association study revealed widespread amino acid limitation in late pregnancy is associated with early onset breast cancer. Archival third trimester pregnancy serum samples from 172 women who subsequently were diagnosed with breast cancer within 38 years after pregnancy were compared to 351 women without breast cancer. No individual metabolite differed after false discovery rate adjustment, indicating that individual metabolites are unlikely to be useful for classification or prediction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is now the most common cancer globally, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide. Despite epidemiologic studies having established a number of risk factors, knowledge of chemical exposure risks is limited to a relatively small number of chemicals. In this exposome research study, we used non-targeted, high-resolution mass spectrometry of pregnancy cohort biospecimens in the Child Health and Development Studies to test for associations with breast cancer identified via the California Cancer Registry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is now the most common cancer globally, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide. Despite epidemiologic studies having established a number of risk factors, knowledge of chemical exposure risks is limited to a relatively small number of chemicals. In this exposome research study, we used non-targeted, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) of pregnancy cohort biospecimens in the Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS) to test for associations with breast cancer identified via the California Cancer Registry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Incidence rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) are increasing among adults born in and after the 1960s, implicating pregnancy-related exposures introduced at that time as risk factors. Dicyclomine, an antispasmodic used to treat irritable bowel syndrome, was initially included in Bendectin (comprising doxylamine, pyridoxine, and dicyclomine), an antiemetic prescribed during pregnancy in the 1960s.
Methods: We estimated the association between in utero exposure to Bendectin and risk of CRC in offspring of the Child Health and Development Studies, a multigenerational cohort that enrolled pregnant women in Oakland, CA, between 1959 and 1966 (n = 14 507 mothers and 18 751 liveborn offspring).
Background: Incidence rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) are increasing among younger adults and in mid-life, implicating exposures in early life as risk factors. We examined the association between in-utero exposure to antibiotics and risk of CRC in adult offspring.
Methods: The Child Health and Development Studies is a prospective cohort of women receiving prenatal care between 1959 and 1966 in Oakland, California, with deliveries through June 1967.
Prenatal infection, particularly at mid-gestation, has been associated with various psychopathological outcomes in offspring; however, findings linking prenatal infection to offspring depression outcomes have been mixed. Previous research indicates that it may be the co-occurrence of prenatal adversities (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: SARS-CoV-2 enters cells using the ACE2 receptor. Medications that affect ACE2 expression or function such as angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) and ACE inhibitors (ACE-I) and metformin have the potential to counter the dysregulation of ACE2 by the virus and protect against viral injury. Here, we describe COVID-19 survival associated with ACE-I, ARB and metformin use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly menarche is associated with adverse health outcomes during adolescence as well as breast and other reproductive cancers later in adulthood. However, the causes of early menarche and the pathways through which they operate are not fully understood. Though maternal thyroid function during pregnancy affects child growth, and rapid childhood growth is associated with a decreased age at menarche, the relationship between prenatal maternal thyroid function and daughters' age at menarche has not been examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: 17α-hydroxyprogesterone caproate is a synthetic progestogen initially approved in the 1950s to treat gynecologic and obstetrical conditions. Despite continued concerns about safety and short-term efficacy regarding the use of 17α-hydroxyprogesterone caproate for the prevention of preterm birth in pregnant women, little is known about the long-term effects of 17α-hydroxyprogesterone caproate on the health of the offsprings.
Objective: To examine the association between in utero exposure to 17α-hydroxyprogesterone caproate and the risk of cancer in the offspring.
Background: Study participants want to receive their biomonitoring results for environmental chemicals, and ethics guidelines encourage reporting back. However, few studies have quantitively assessed participants' responses to individual exposure reports, and digital methods have not been evaluated.
Objectives: We isolated effects of receiving personal results vs.
We report severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine effectiveness against infection (VE-I) and death (VE-D) by vaccine type in 780,225 veterans in the Veterans Health Administration, covering 2.7% of the US population. From February to October 2021, VE-I declined for all vaccine types, and the decline was greatest for the Janssen vaccine, resulting in a VE-I of 13.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Obesity is a well-established risk factor for CRC, and fetal or developmental origins of obesity may underlie its effect on cancer in adulthood. We examined associations of maternal obesity, pregnancy weight gain, and birth weight and CRC in adult offspring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mammographic breast density (MBD) and benign breast disease (BBD) are two of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer. Understanding trends in MBD by age and parity in women with BBD is essential to the clinical management and prevention of breast cancer.
Methods: Using data from the Early Determinants of Mammographic Density (EDMD) study, a prospective follow-up study of women born in 1959-1967, we evaluated MBD in 676 women.
Background: Serum DDTs during or just after pregnancy were associated with breast cancer in mothers (F0), and with breast cancer, mammographic density, and obesity in adult daughters (F1) in the Child Health and Development Studies multi-generational cohort in prior publications. Here, we investigate F0 perinatal serum DDT associations with granddaughters'(F2) measured obesity at a median age of 26 and self-reported age at menarche.
Methods: F2 weight, height and waist circumference were measured by trained examiners.
Background: Obesity is a malnourishment epidemic worldwide. A meta-analysis of prospective human studies across the world demonstrated a consistent positive association between maternal exposure to the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolite dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and children with obesity. The present study evaluates the association of maternal exposure to DDT and DDE with the risk of obesity in daughters during their mid-life in a prospective birth cohort with up to 53 years of follow-up.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObesity is present in 17% of US youth, age 2-19 years, but the extent to which obesity in childhood is associated with higher BMI and fat mass in middle age is unclear. In this study, links between childhood body size and BMI and body composition at age ∼50 were assessed. Child Health and Development Studies participants, born between 1960 and 1963 in Alameda County, and still living in California, from whom anthropometric data were collected at age 5, 9-11, and/or 15-17 years were followed-up at age ∼50 for anthropometric outcomes (251 women; 249 men).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh-resolution metabolomics (HRM) profiling of metabolic fingerprints can improve understanding of how poly and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) induce metabolic alterations of in utero environment and impact fetal health. HRM profiling and quantification of PFASs were performed for 397 maternal perinatal serum samples collected from 1959-1967 in the Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS). We used Metabolome-Wide Association Studies (MWAS) and pathway enrichment analysis for metabolic associations with PFOS, its precursor EtFOSAA, and EtFOSAA-to-PFOS ratio.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF