American Journal of Human Biology最新文献

Objectives: Cortisol is an important metabolic hormone that regulates multiple physiologic systems. Cortisol metabolism is sensitive to early life environments, including that experienced prenatally. Limited research has evaluated factors that predict variation in maternal and offspring toddler hair cortisol, which is important since hair cortisol represents different dynamics of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA)-axis function than more common salivary or serum measures.

Methods: To address this gap, we longitudinally evaluated whether maternal depression measured in pregnancy and 1 month postnatal was associated with maternal and offspring hair cortisol levels approximately 15 months after birth (n = 46 mothers, 40 toddlers; mean 15.6 months postnatal, SD = 2.9 months).

Results: Mean depression symptoms were highest during the prenatal period. Prenatal, but not postnatal, maternal depression was associated with offspring hair cortisol levels (B = 0.095, p = .01). Maternal hair cortisol was not associated with depression measured at either time point.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that offspring hair cortisol more than a year after birth is associated with maternal prenatal depression, consistent with previous research in salivary cortisol, suggesting that long-term offspring stress physiology may be influenced by conditions experienced in utero. These findings highlight the potential for hair cortisol-a minimally invasive and easy-to-collect measure- to index toddler HPA-axis dynamics.

Introduction: Black people had the highest prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) of any racial/ethnic group in the United States (US) as of 2020. As racial disparities in the prevalence of ADRD are being investigated, more evidence is necessary to determine the pathways and mechanisms that either slow ADRD progression or improve quality of life for those affected. Religion/spirituality (R/S) has been shown to affect health outcomes but has rarely been studied as a possible pathway for reducing ADRD risk. Crucially, Black people also report higher levels of R/S than other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. This research asks if R/S affects ADRD risk among Black adults and if any effects persist after controlling for hypertension.

Methods: We conducted a secondary data analysis drawing from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal dataset with an oversampling of Black adults.

Results: We used logistic regression analysis to demonstrate how R/S has an ameliorating impact on ADRD risk among Black people, even after controlling for hypertension. Those who never attended religious services had 2.37 higher odds of being diagnosed with ADRD than those who attended more than once a week. Further, as R/S attendance increased, ADRD risk decreased linearly.

Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the importance that existing cultural networks (e.g., R/S) can have for reducing ADRD burden for Black people and has important implications for the role of R/S in shaping ADRD symptomatology.

Introduction: Development policies have aimed to substitute subsistence agriculture for cash crops or other cash generating activities to encourage local farmers to depend on store-bought groceries available year-round instead of seasonal subsistence crops. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that increased dependence on store bought foods has decreased seasonal changes in nutritional status and fat mass in Maya Children from Yucatan, Mexico.

Methods: Weight for age (W/A), body mass index (BMI), and tricipital Skinfold z scores in children under the age of 10 years from 14 Maya rural towns with different degrees of development were compared longitudinally between scarcity and abundance seasons using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Height for age (H/A) z scores were also estimated.

Results: Origin of food consumed corresponded to the town's degree of development. Nutritional status (W/Az) and adiposity, BMI, and tricipital z scores were significantly lower during the scarcity season in every community. W/Az, tricipital skinfold z, and H/Az scores were significantly higher in developed than in traditional towns, yet in both types of town W/Az and H/Az scores were below the WHO standard mean. Tricipital skinfold z score was only below the WHO standard amongst traditional towns during the scarcity season.

Conclusions: Increased dependence on store foods failed to eliminate significant losses in body fat during the scarcity season. This failure may be affecting linear growth and promoting a thrifty phenotype that is seen in short and stocky individuals with a tendency to accumulate fat during abundance seasons.

Objectives: The United Nations recommends that women consume ≥5 food groups, also known as the minimum dietary diversity score for women (MDD-W), for nutritional health. This is increasingly unattainable for populations in climate hot zones coping with food insecurity by prioritizing calories over dietary breadth. Breastfeeding mothers may be particularly vulnerable to adverse health impacts of low dietary diversity due to elevated nutritional requirements for lactation. We investigated how the protective effects of MDD-W for folate adequacy varies by MDD-W score and mother-infant life history characteristics.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from breastfeeding mothers (n = 228) in northern Kenya, surveyed during the 2006 Horn-of-Africa drought. Logistic regression models for adequate dietary folate (and vitamins B12 and B6) and normal homocysteine (folate-replete status) evaluated the effect of MDD-W alone and in interaction with infant/maternal characteristics.

Results: MDD-W (as ordinal or dichotomous variable) was positively associated with adequate folate (and vitamin B12). Having male infant was inversely associated with adequate dietary folate. MDD-W was generally unassociated with homocysteine. However, there was an interaction between MDD-W and sex of the infant. Namely, MDD-W ≥ 3 predicted increased probability of normal homocysteine among mothers with female infants but not male infants.

Conclusions: Diets consisting of three or more food groups may protect adequate folate intake for many breastfeeding mothers. More research is needed to establish what level of dietary diversity would protect against hyperhomocysteinemia during breastfeeding and what factors promote or hinder the benefit of diversified diets on maternal folate nutrition.

In this special issue of the American Journal of Human Biology, Guest Editors Sara Pereira, José Maia, and Peter Katzmarzyk, along with their research collaborators, summarize the initial findings from the REACT Project (“Return-to-Action after the COVID-19 Pandemic”). The REACT Project is a longitudinal study of growth, motor development, and health behaviors carried out among school children ages 6–10 years from Matosinhos, northern Portugal. The primary objectives of this research were to: (1) evaluate children's growth and motor development following the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) track the developmental trajectories of fundamental movement skills (FMS) using a novel technology, the Meu Educativo® app, in their physical education classes.

This is the first special issue of the AJHB to provide findings from a single, pandemic-initiated research project. The eight papers in this issue offer an example of the impressive work being done by human biologists to explore the short and longer-term influences of the pandemic on human health and well-being. The REACT Project's focus on evaluating and promoting healthy patterns of physical growth, activity, and motor development in the wake of the pandemic is particularly salient given the importance of these early-life factors for shaping adult health outcomes and disease risks.

Sara Pereira et al. (2024b) open this special issue by providing an overview of the objectives, research design, and methodologies used in the REACT study. The thoughtful and rigorous protocol for the study is allowing the researchers to explore the influence of diverse family, school, and neighborhood factors in shaping children's physical growth, movement skills, fitness, and health behaviors. Such rich insights offer to provide valuable information to both parents and educators on how to effectively promote physical activity and healthy growth and development among school-aged children.

Papers by Donald Hedeker et al. (2024) and Fernando Garbeloto et al. (2024b) highlight the novel analytic and statistical approaches employed in the REACT research project. Hedeker and colleagues offer a detailed and accessible discussion of the utility of multilevel ordinal logistic models for evaluating longitudinal changes in motor development. Garbeloto and colleagues document the utility and reliability of the Meu Educativo® application for assessing children's FMS levels. This paper showcases how this new tool can be effectively used by researchers, educators, and coaches interested in evaluating patterns of motor development during childhood.

Papers by Sara Pereira et al. (2024a) and José Maia et al. (2024) employ multivariate, multilevel approaches to explore the influence of both individual and school factors in shaping children's body mass indexes (BMI), fitness levels, and motor performance. Pereira and colleagues