Placental Size Is Associated Differentially With Postnatal Bone Size and Density.

We investigated relationships between placental size and offspring adolescent bone indices using a population-based, mother-offspring cohort. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) recruited pregnant women from the southwest of England between 1991 and 1993. There were 12,942 singleton babies born at term who survived at least the first 12 months.

Genome-wide association study of ankylosing spondylitis identifies non-MHC susceptibility loci.

To identify susceptibility loci for ankylosing spondylitis, we undertook a genome-wide association study in 2,053 unrelated ankylosing spondylitis cases among people of European descent and 5,140 ethnically matched controls, with replication in an independent cohort of 898 ankylosing spondylitis cases and 1,518 controls. Cases were genotyped with Illumina HumHap370 genotyping chips. In addition to strong association with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC; P < 10(-800)), we found association with SNPs in two gene deserts at 2p15 (rs10865331; combined P = 1.

Glutathione-S-transferase genes and asthma phenotypes: a Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) systematic review and meta-analysis including unpublished data.

Background: Oxidative stress is thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of asthma. Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) enzymes, which play an important role in antioxidant defences, may therefore influence asthma risk. Two common deletion polymorphisms of GSTM1 and GSTT1 genes and the GSTP1 Ile105Val polymorphism have been associated with asthma in children and adults, but results are inconsistent across studies.

Two British women studies replicated the association between the Val66Met polymorphism in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and BMI.

The goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between the Val66Met polymorphism in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and body mass index (BMI) in two sizable and well-characterized populations of British women: the British Women's Heart and Health Study (BWHHS) (age 60-79 years) and the mothers from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (age 16-44 years). We genotyped the Val66Met polymorphism (rs6265) in these two populations, and conducted a linear regression analysis to test for an association between this polymorphism and BMI. Both study populations indicated an association between BMI and the Val66Met polymorphism, with individuals carrying the Met-Met genotype having a lower mean BMI than those with the Val-Met or Val-Val genotypes (in the BWHHS): mean BMI difference=-0.