BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that, in addition to genetic liability and environment in early childhood, intrauterine life also influences the risk for asthma beyond childhood. Low birth weight, prematurity, young maternal age, and maternal smoking have all shown an association with asthma. The effect of perinatal factors on the risk for asthma in relation to familial and social ri...

OBJECTIVE To assess serum adiponectin levels of neonates in relation to ponderal index and birth length with and without adjustment for potential confounding factors including maternal factors and perinatal characteristics. DESIGN A cross-sectional study. METHODS Three hundred and three newborns (Caucasian, singleton, full term, with a birth weight of > or =2500 g, and apparently healthy) w...

The relationship between ponderal, linear and lower leg growth in children recovering from severe malnutrition remains unclear. We report on the early growth of 141 severely malnourished Bangladeshi children aged 6 to 36 months of age who were followed for 90 d. Mean (sd) weight for height (WHZ) and height for age (HAZ) catch-up growth z scores over the 90 d were 1.6 (0.85) and 0.47 (0.325) res...

OBJECTIVE To determine cord blood leptin levels in newborns appropriate for gestational age, according to gender, birth weight, birth height and ponderal index. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out with 132 term newborns appropriate for gestational age (68 females, 64 males), gestational age between 35-42 weeks. Data were collected through interviews with the mothers at the materni...

The objective of this study was to determine whether stopping smoking between the first prenatal care visit and the 32nd week of pregnancy affects the smoking-associated changes in five infant anthropometric indices. The study population consisted of 15,185 births in the Swedish Medical Birth Register from 1991 and 1992. The associations between birth weight, crown-heel length, head circumferen...

We examined the risk of tuberculosis in relation to birth weight and ponderal index among 21,596 Swedish twins born from 1926 through 1958. Using a cohort design, tuberculosis risk was 11% lower for every 500 g of birth weight (P = .05) and 8% lower for every 0.2 of ponderal index, calculated as birth weight in grams multiplied by 100 and divided by the cube of birth length in centimeters (P = ...

The relationship between blood pressure, ponderal index, sex, blood glucose, haemoglobin, serum uric acid, calcium cholesterol and creatinine, and albumin has been examined in 698 subjects aged between 44 and 49 years from the register of a group general practice. Sixty per cent of the variation in systolic pressure could be explained by statistically significant associations with diastolic pre...

Body Weight, Cerebral A therosclerosis and Cerebral Vascular Disease: An Autopsy Study • The severity of atherosclerotic involvement of intracranial cerebral arteries was assessed at autopsy in 3,315 adult subjects. Ponderal index values were calculated for each sex and ten-year age group. In most age groups, subjects with cerebral vascular disease, or one or more of several conditions known to...

A high incidence (over 20%) of obesity was found in 250 neonates living in a rural area of Tunisia, by using weight and ponderal index per gestational age as the nutritional index. Maternal diabetes was probably excluded. Two surveys on nutritional habits--one on the general population and the other on pregnant women--showed a tendency to consume a high carbohydrate and low protein diet. The ef...