Early growth patterns in children with autism.

Background: Case-control studies have found increased head growth during the first year of life in children with autism spectrum disorder. Length and weight have not been as extensively studied, and there are few studies of population-based samples.

Methods: The study was conducted in a sample of 106,082 children from the population-based Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort.

Associations of prenatal maternal smoking with offspring hyperactivity: causal or confounded?

Background: The relationship between prenatal tobacco exposure and hyperactivity remains controversial. To mitigate limitations of prior studies, we used a strategy involving comparison of maternal and paternal smoking reports in a historical sample where smoking during pregnancy was common.

Method: Data were drawn from a longitudinally followed subsample of the Child Health and Development Study (n = 1752), a population-based pregnancy cohort ascertained in 1961-1963 in California.

Tracking and fixed ranking of leukocyte telomere length across the adult life course.

Short leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with atherosclerosis in adults and diminished survival in the elderly. LTL dynamics are defined by LTL at birth, which is highly variable, and its age-dependent attrition thereafter, which is rapid during the first 20 years of life. We examined whether age-dependent LTL attrition during adulthood can substantially affect individuals' LTL ranking (e.

The International Collaboration for Autism Registry Epidemiology (iCARE): multinational registry-based investigations of autism risk factors and trends.

The International Collaboration for Autism Registry Epidemiology (iCARE) is the first multinational research consortium (Australia, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, USA) to promote research in autism geographical and temporal heterogeneity, phenotype, family and life course patterns, and etiology. iCARE devised solutions to challenges in multinational collaboration concerning data access security, confidentiality and management. Data are obtained by integrating existing national or state-wide, population-based, individual-level data systems and undergo rigorous harmonization and quality control processes.

Deviance in fetal growth and risk of autism spectrum disorder.

Objective: Understanding the relationship between fetal growth and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is likely to advance the search for genetic and nongenetic causes of ASD. The authors explored the associations between fetal growth, gestational age, and ASD with and without comorbid intellectual disability in a Scandinavian study population.

Method: The authors conducted a matched nested case-control study within the Stockholm Youth Cohort that included all children ages 0-17 who resided in Stockholm County from 2001 to 2007 (N=589,114).

Telomeres shorten at equivalent rates in somatic tissues of adults.

Telomere shortening in somatic tissues largely reflects stem cell replication. Previous human studies of telomere attrition were predominantly conducted on leukocytes. However, findings in leukocytes cannot be generalized to other tissues.

Invited commentary: is prenatal fasting during Ramadan related to adult health outcomes? A novel and important question for epidemiology.

In this issue of the Journal, Van Ewijk et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2013;177(8):729-736) report intriguing associations between prenatal exposure to the religious month of Ramadan and body anthropometry among adult Muslims in Indonesia.

Parental smoking in the vicinity of children and tobacco control policies in the European region.

Objective: To ascertain patterns of parental smoking in the vicinity of children in Eastern and Western Europe and their relation to Tobacco Control Scale (TCS) scores.

Methods: Data on parental smoking patterns were obtained from the School Child Mental Health Europe (SCMHE), a 2010 cross-sectional survey of 5141 school children aged 6 to 11 years and their parents in six countries: Germany, Netherlands, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey ranked by TCS into three level categories toward tobacco control policies.

Results: A slightly higher proportion of Eastern compared to Western European mothers (42.

Association between maternal use of folic acid supplements and risk of autism spectrum disorders in children.

Importance: Prenatal folic acid supplements reduce the risk of neural tube defects in children, but it has not been determined whether they protect against other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Objective: To examine the association between maternal use of prenatal folic acid supplements and subsequent risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) (autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified [PDD-NOS]) in children.

Design, Setting, And Patients: The study sample of 85,176 children was derived from the population-based, prospective Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

Leukocyte telomere length and the father's age enigma: implications for population health and for life course.

What are the implications for population health of the demographic trend toward increasing paternal age at conception (PAC) in modern societies? We propose that the effects of older PAC are likely to be broad and harmful in some domains of health but beneficial in others. Harmful effects of older PAC have received the most attention. Thus, for example, older PAC is associated with an increased risk of offspring having rare conditions such as achondroplasia and Marfan syndrome, as well as with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

Degree of fetal growth restriction associated with schizophrenia risk in a national cohort.

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that fetal growth restriction may increase risk of later schizophrenia but this issue has not been addressed directly in previous studies. We examined whether the degree of fetal growth restriction was linearly related to risk of schizophrenia, and also whether maternal pre-eclampsia, associated with both placental dysfunction and poor fetal growth, was related to risk of schizophrenia.

Method: A population-based cohort of single live births in the Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN) between 1967 and 1982 was followed to adulthood (n=873 612).

Employment outcome for people with schizophrenia in rural v. urban China: population-based study.

Background: Although outcomes among people with schizophrenia differ by social context, this has rarely been examined across rural v. urban settings. For individuals with schizophrenia, employment is widely recognised as a critical ingredient of social integration.

Do socio-economic gradients in smoking emerge differently across time by gender? Implications for the tobacco epidemic from a pregnancy cohort in California, USA.

Understanding current patterns of population smoking by socioeconomic position (SEP) can be substantially enhanced by research that follows birth cohorts over long periods of time, yet such data in the US are rare. Information from birth cohorts followed during critical time periods when the health consequences of smoking became widely known can inform the ways in which current smoking prevalence has been shaped by the historical processes that preceded it. The present study utilizes data from a substudy of the Child Health and Development Study pregnancy cohort (N = 1612).

Severity and persistence of asthma and mental health: a birth cohort study.

Background: The goal of the current study was to investigate asthma and mental health among youth in the community, and to consider the role of asthma severity and persistence in this link. Method Data were drawn from the Raine Study, a population-based birth cohort study in Western Australia. Logistic regression models and generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between asthma at age 5 years and the range of internalizing and externalizing mental health problems at ages 5-17 years.

Use of folic acid supplements in early pregnancy in relation to maternal plasma levels in week 18 of pregnancy.

Scope: Birth cohorts typically measure plasma folate in midgestation, but effects of folic acid supplementation are sometimes specific to the periconceptional period. The relationship between midgestation plasma folate and periconceptional supplementation is not known. We compared plasma folate at week 18 of gestation with self-report use of supplements comtaining folic acid from before pregnancy to week 17 of gestation.

Maternal B vitamin status in pregnancy week 18 according to reported use of folic acid supplements.

Scope: Epidemiological studies on the association between pregnancy outcomes and use of periconceptional folic acid are often based on maternal reported intake. Use of folic acid during pregnancy is associated with a higher socioeconomic status known to have an impact on diet quality. We have studied plasma B vitamin status according to reported use of folic acid supplements during the periconceptional period in Norwegian women.

Human blood RNA stabilization in samples collected and transported for a large biobank.

Background: The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) is a nation-wide population-based pregnancy cohort initiated in 1999, comprising more than 108.000 pregnancies recruited between 1999 and 2008. In this study we evaluated the feasibility of integrating RNA analyses into existing MoBa protocols.

Paternal age and risk of autism in an ethnically diverse, non-industrialized setting: Aruba.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine paternal age in relation to risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in a setting other than the industrialized west.

Design: A case-control study of Aruban-born children (1990-2003). Cases (N = 95) were identified at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic, the only such clinic in Aruba; gender and age matched controls (N = 347) were gathered from public health records.

The disappearing seasonality of autism conceptions in California.

Background: Autism incidence and prevalence have increased dramatically in the last two decades. The autism caseload in California increased 600% between 1992 and 2006, yet there is little consensus as to the cause. Studying the seasonality of conceptions of children later diagnosed with autism may yield clues to potential etiological drivers.

Global perspective on early diagnosis and intervention for children with developmental delays and disabilities.

Low- and middle-income countries are experiencing a significant reduction in mortality of children under 5 years of age. This reduction is bringing in its wake large numbers of surviving children with developmental delays and disabilities. Very little attention has been paid to these children, most of whom receive minimal or no support.