Assessment of height growth in Indian children using growth centiles and growth curves

New French height velocity growth charts: An innovative big-data approach based on routine measurements

AIM

Height velocity is considered a key auxological tool to monitor growth, but updated height velocity growth charts are lacking. We aimed to derive new French height velocity growth charts by using a big-data approach based on routine measurements.

METHODS

We extracted all growth data of children aged 1 month-18 years from the electronic medical records of 42 primary care physicians, between 1 January 1990 and 8 February 2018, throughout the French metropolitan territory. We derived annual and biannual height velocity growth charts until age 15 years by using the Lambda-Mu-Sigma method. These new growth charts were compared to the 1979 French and 2009 World Health Organisation (WHO) ones.

RESULTS

New height velocity growth charts were generated with 193 124 and 209 221 annual and biannual values from 80 204 and 87 260 children, respectively, and showed good internal fit. Median curves were close to the 1979 French or 2009 WHO ones, but SD curves displayed important differences. Similar results were found with the biannual height velocity growth charts.

CONCLUSION

We produced new height velocity growth charts until age 15 years by using a big-data approach applied to measurements routinely collected in clinical practice. These updated growth charts could help optimise growth-monitoring performance.

Reference growth curves of anthropometric markers in Brazilian children and adolescents aged 7-14 years from southern Brazil

Reference growth curves are viable tools for monitoring somatic growth. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop reference growth curves for body mass, height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) in Brazilian children and adolescents aged 7-14 years. The reference growth curves were constructed from a cross-sectional panel study using data from four surveys conducted in 2002, 2007, 2012/2013 and 2018/2019, with 9675 children and adolescents aged 7-14 years, of both sexes from Florianopolis, Southern Brazil. Growth curves were constructed using the LMS method, based on anthropometric indicators and indices (body mass, height, BMI, WC and WHtR), measured according to standardised norms. There was an increase in body mass, height, BMI and WC values with increasing age in both sexes and percentiles (P5, P10, P25, P50, P75, P85 and P95). The girls presented higher values of body mass, BMI and WC in the analysed percentiles, compared to the boys. Regarding height, there was a higher value from 10 to 11 years old in girls and from 12 to 14 years old in boys. WHtR decreased with increasing age in both sexes and analysed percentiles. Region-specific reference growth curves can enable the monitoring of somatic growth of particular paediatric populations, expanding discussions in different regions of the world.

Epigenetic age acceleration is associated with speed of pubertal growth but not age of pubertal onset

Using data from a longitudinal cohort of children, we examined whether epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) was associated with pubertal growth and whether these associations were mediated by adiposity. We examined associations between EAA at approximately 10 years of age with pubertal growth metrics, including age at peak height velocity (PHV), PHV, and sex steroid levels and whether these associations were mediated by measures of adiposity including body mass index (BMI) and MRI-assessed visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Children (n = 135) with accelerated EAA had higher PHV (β 0.018, p = 0.0008) although the effect size was small. The association between EAA and age at PHV was not significant (β  - 0.0022, p = 0.067). Although EAA was associated with higher BMI (β 0.16, p = 0.0041), VAT (β 0.50, p = 0.037), and SAT (β 3.47, p = 0.0076), BMI and VAT did not mediate associations between EAA and PHV, while SAT explained 8.4% of the association. Boys with higher EAA had lower total testosterone (β  - 12.03, p = 0.0014), but associations between EAA and other sex steroids were not significant, and EAA was not associated with sex steroid levels in girls. We conclude that EAA did not have strong associations with either age at onset of puberty or pubertal growth speed, although associations with growth speed were statistically significant. Studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm this pattern of associations.