Cholesterol levels in later life amongst UK Channel Islanders exposed to the 1940-45 German occupation as children, adolescents and young adults.

Background: To clarify the nature of the relationship between: food deprivation and undernutrition during pre- and postnatal development; and cholesterol levels in later life, this study examined the relationship between birth weight (as a marker of prenatal nutrition) and cholesterol levels among 396 Guernsey islanders (born in 1923-1937), 87 of whom (22%) had been exposed to food deprivation as children, adolescents or young adults (i.e. to postnatal undernutrition) during the 1940-45 German occupation of the Channel Islands, and 309 of whom (78%) had left or been evacuated from the islands before the occupation began.

Flaws in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's rationale for supporting the development and approval of BiDil as a treatment for heart failure only in black patients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) rationale for supporting the development and approval of BiDil (a combination of hydralazine hydrochloride and isosorbide dinitrate; H-I) for heart failure specifically in black patients was based on under-powered, post hoc subgroup analyses of two relatively old trials (V-HeFT I and II), which were further complicated by substantial covariate imbalances between racial groups.

Cardiovascular disease in a cohort exposed to the 1940-45 Channel Islands occupation.

Background: To clarify the nature of the relationship between food deprivation/undernutrition during pre- and postnatal development and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life, this study examined the relationship between birth weight (as a marker of prenatal nutrition) and the incidence of hospital admissions for CVD from 1997-2005 amongst 873 Guernsey islanders (born in 1923-1937), 225 of whom had been exposed to food deprivation as children, adolescents or young adults (i.e. postnatal undernutrition) during the 1940-45 German occupation of the Channel Islands, and 648 of whom had left or been evacuated from the islands before the occupation began.

A qualitative exploration of the production of Hospital Episode Statistics in a Guernsey hospital: implications for regional comparisons of UK health data.

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are widely used in the UK for audit and research. This often includes comparisons between different geographical regions, but there is some doubt as to the reliability of comparisons made using these data. Previous studies have focused on the quantitative accuracy of the coding, but not the full data chain.

What evidence is there that adjustment for adult height influences the relationship between birth weight and blood pressure?

Background: The inverse association between birth weight and blood pressure may partly be the result of inappropriate adjustment for adult body size, but it remains unclear whether adjustment for adult height elicits this effect.

Aim: The study investigated the impact of adjustment for adult height on the relationship between birth weight and blood pressure.

Methods: A systematic search of Medline from 1996 to 2006 was conducted using the terms 'birth weight', 'blood pressure' and 'hypertension', and any papers containing linear regression analyses of blood pressure on birth weight for populations with an average age of 25+ were eligible for inclusion in comparative meta-analyses.