Early-Life Environmental Exposures and Childhood Obesity: An Exposome-Wide Approach.

Background: Chemical and nonchemical environmental exposures are increasingly suspected to influence the development of obesity, especially during early life, but studies mostly consider single exposure groups.

Objectives: Our study aimed to systematically assess the association between a wide array of early-life environmental exposures and childhood obesity, using an exposome-wide approach.

Methods: The HELIX (Human Early Life Exposome) study measured child body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, skinfold thickness, and body fat mass in 1,301 children from six European birth cohorts age 6-11 y.

Relying on repeated biospecimens to reduce the effects of classical-type exposure measurement error in studies linking the exposome to health.

The exposome calls for assessing numerous exposures, typically using biomarkers with varying amounts of measurement error, which can be assumed to be of classical type. We evaluated the impact of classical-type measurement error on the performance of exposome-health studies, and the efficiency of two measurement error correction methods relying on the collection of repeated biospecimens: within-subject biospecimens pooling and regression calibration. In a simulation study, we generated 237 exposures from a realistic correlation matrix, with various amounts of classical-type measurement error, and a continuous health outcome linearly influenced by exposures.

Association of Fish Consumption and Mercury Exposure During Pregnancy With Metabolic Health and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Children.

Importance: The balance of mercury risk and nutritional benefit from fish intake during pregnancy for the metabolic health of offspring to date is unknown.

Objective: To assess the associations of fish intake and mercury exposure during pregnancy with metabolic syndrome in children and alterations in biomarkers of inflammation in children.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based prospective birth cohort study used data from studies performed in 5 European countries (France, Greece, Norway, Spain, and the UK) between April 1, 2003, and February 26, 2016, as part of the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) project.

Sensitisation to staphylococcal enterotoxins and asthma severity: a longitudinal study in the EGEA cohort.

Introduction: Evidence is accumulating that plays an important role as disease modifier in upper and lower airway diseases. Sensitisation to enterotoxins (SEs) was associated with an increased risk of severe asthma in previous cross-sectional studies, but evidence from longitudinal studies is lacking. We aimed to assess associations between SE-sensitisation and the subsequent risk for asthma severity and exacerbations.

Early-life exposome and lung function in children in Europe: an analysis of data from the longitudinal, population-based HELIX cohort.

Background: Several single-exposure studies have documented possible effects of environmental factors on lung function, but none has relied on an exposome approach. We aimed to evaluate the association between a broad range of prenatal and postnatal lifestyle and environmental exposures and lung function in children.

Methods: In this analysis, we used data from 1033 mother-child pairs from the European Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) cohort (consisting of six existing longitudinal birth cohorts in France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, and the UK of children born between 2003 and 2009) for whom a valid spirometry test was recorded for the child.