We present 127 years of data on the physical stature of military conscripts born in Italy during 1854-1980, as well as an analysis of regional variations in height (for birth cohorts born during 1927-1980). The height of young men has increased in all regions of Italy. The secular trend and the regional changes in stature are correlated with economic growth and a general improvement of living c...

BACKGROUND Preterm children face higher risk of cognitive and academic deficits compared with their full-term peers. The objective of this study was to describe early childhood cognitive ability and kindergarten academic achievement across gestational age at birth in a population-based longitudinal cohort. METHODS The study population included singletons born at 24-42 weeks gestation enrolled...

OBJECTIVES To examine age related changes in physical functioning in elderly men and women. DESIGN Prospective, population based study. SETTING Population of 15 rural and urban centres in 10 European countries. PARTICIPANTS Altogether 3496 men and women born between 1900 and 1920 who participated in the baseline survey of the HALE project in 1988-1991. The study population was examined ag...

PURPOSE To report the long term outcomes, safety, stability, and efficacy in a pilot series of simultaneous hyperopic laser assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) and corneal crosslinking (CXL). METHOD A small cohort series of five eyes, with clinically suboptimal topography and/or thickness, underwent LASIK surgery with immediate riboflavin application under the flap, followed by UV light i...

Clinical studies that use observational databases to evaluate the effects of medical products have become commonplace. Such studies begin by selecting a particular database, a decision that published papers invariably report but do not discuss. Studies of the same issue in different databases, however, can and do generate different results, sometimes with strikingly different clinical implicati...

Long-term birth cohort studies are essential to understanding the life course and childhood predictors of allergy and the complex interplay between genes and the environment (including lifestyle and socioeconomic determinants). Over 100 cohorts focusing on asthma and allergy have been initiated in the world over the past 30 years. Since 2004, several research initiatives funded under the EU Fra...

Studies on well-being and its possible determinants are rare in the international literature, and almost non-existent in Brazil, particularly among youth. The present study focused on the epidemiology of well-being among adolescents belonging to a birth cohort. Well-being was measured using face-to-face interviews, with a question whose answer was based on a graphic scale of faces. 4,452 adoles...

Social mobility is now a matter of greater political concern in Britain than at any time previously. However, the data available for the determination of mobility trends are less adequate today than two or three decades ago. It is widely believed in political and in media circles that social mobility is in decline. But the evidence so far available from sociological research, focused on interge...

M uch of the original work on vitamin D and asthma incidence focused on birth cohort studies. These studies examined the effect of maternal intake of vitamin D during pregnancy and its impact on asthma/wheeze in the first few years of life [1–3]. In all three of these methodologically wellperformed birth cohort studies, higher maternal intake of vitamin D was associated with a lower incidence o...

Importance Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is used by a large proportion of pregnant women. Research suggests that acetaminophen use in pregnancy is associated with abnormal fetal neurodevelopment. However, it is possible that this association might be confounded by unmeasured behavioral factors linked to acetaminophen use. Objective To examine associations between offspring behavioral problems a...