scholarly journals Social background, adult body-height and health

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 911-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Silventoinen ◽  
E. Lahelma ◽  
O. Rahkonen
2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 399-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karri Silventoinen ◽  
Sampo Sammalisto ◽  
Markus Perola ◽  
Dorret I. Boomsma ◽  
Belinda K. Cornes ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (24) ◽  
pp. 6607-6615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengmeng Du ◽  
Paul L. Auer ◽  
Shuo Jiao ◽  
Jeffrey Haessler ◽  
David Altshuler ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renald Delanoue ◽  
Nuria M. Romero

In mammals like humans, adult fitness is improved due to resource allocation, investing energy in the developmental growth process during the juvenile period, and in reproduction at the adult stage. Therefore, the attainment of their target body height/size co-occurs with the acquisition of maturation, implying a need for coordination between mechanisms that regulate organismal growth and maturation timing. Insects like Drosophila melanogaster also define their adult body size by the end of the juvenile larval period. Recent studies in the fly have shown evolutionary conservation of the regulatory pathways controlling growth and maturation, suggesting the existence of common coordinator mechanisms between them. In this review, we will present an overview of the significant advancements in the coordination mechanisms ensuring developmental robustness in Drosophila. We will include (i) the characterization of feedback mechanisms between maturation and growth hormones, (ii) the recognition of a relaxin-like peptide Dilp8 as a central processor coordinating juvenile regeneration and time of maturation, and (iii) the identification of a novel coordinator mechanism involving the AstA/KISS system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 696-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Jarosz ◽  
Alexi Gugushvili

AbstractHuman anthropometric traits, while significantly determined by genetic factors, are also affected by an individual’s early life environment. An adult’s body height is a valid indicator of their living conditions in childhood. Parental education has been shown to be one of the key covariates of individuals’ health and height, both in childhood and adulthood. Parental functional literacy has been demonstrated to be another important determinant of child health, but this has largely been overlooked in studies on height. The objective of this study was to analyse the associations between parents’ education, their functional literacy and their children’s adult body height. The study used data for 39,240 individuals from the 2016 wave of the nationally representative Life in Transition Survey (LITS) conducted in 34 countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Using linear and Poisson models, regression adjustment treatment estimators and multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions, the study analysed the links between mother’s and father’s educational attainment, parental functional literacy, measured by the number of books in the childhood home, and children’s adult height. The models also included other individual and contextual covariates of height. The results demonstrated that mother’s educational attainment and parental functional literacy have independent associations with children’s adult body height. Sufficient literacy skills of the parent may have a positive effect on children’s growth even if parental education is low. These associations remained significant across time. The study also provides evidence of a widening of the height gap for men born in the period just before and after systemic transition in post-socialist societies, which may suggest an increase in social differences in early living standards.


2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1859) ◽  
pp. 20171372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogusław Pawłowski ◽  
Judyta Nowak ◽  
Barbara Borkowska ◽  
Daria Augustyniak ◽  
Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa

According to the good genes hypothesis and energy allocation theory, human adult body height may reflect biological quality. An important aspect of this quality is immune system functioning (ISF). The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between ISF and body height in healthy people. The ISF was determined by several important innate (total complement and lysozyme activity, neutrophil function) and adaptive immune parameters (lymphocytes, IgA and IgG, and response to the flu vaccine). Overall, 96 males and 97 females were subjected to flu vaccination, and of these, 35 males and 34 females were subjected to tetanus. Blood samples were collected before and four weeks after vaccination. Immunomodulatory factors, participant's age, body fat, and free testosterone levels, were controlled. There was no association between body height and all analysed immune parameters for both sexes. That might suggest that in Western society, a women's preference for taller men is not related to ‘good genes for immune competence’. We propose the novel Immunity Priority Hypothesis that explains the lack of relationship between adult body stature and ISF. This hypothesis, however, does not contradict the signalling role of a man's body height as a morphological marker of biological quality.


Author(s):  
Vitor H. Pereira ◽  
Patrício S. Costa ◽  
Nadine C. Santos ◽  
Pedro G. Cunha ◽  
Margarida Correia-Neves ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Bojan Masanovic ◽  
◽  
Tonci Bavcevic ◽  
Ivan Prskalo ◽  
◽  
...  

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