Exposure in utero to adverse events and health late-in-life: Evidence from China

This paper estimates the effect of in utero exposure to adverse events on late life diabetes, cardiovascular disease risks and cognition deficiency. We merge data on the regional violence during the Cultural Revolution and the excessive death rates during the Chinese Great Famine with data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study survey. Results show that female babies who were exposed in utero to the famine have higher diabetes risks, while male babies who were exposed to the Cultural Revolution are shown to have lower cognitive abilities.

Stressors interact across generations to influence offspring telomeres and survival

Parental stress often has long-term consequences for offspring. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects and how they are shaped by conditions offspring subsequently experience are poorly understood. Telomeres, which often shorten in response to stress and predict longevity, may contribute to, and/or reflect these cross-generational effects. Traditionally, parental stress is expected to have negative effects on offspring telomeres, but experimental studies in captive animals suggest that these effects may depend on the subsequent conditions that offspring experience. Yet, the degree to which parental stress influences and interacts with stress experienced by offspring to affect offspring telomeres and survival in free-living organisms is unknown. To assess this, we experimentally manipulated the stress exposure of free-living parent and offspring house sparrows (Passer domesticus). We found a weak, initial, negative effect of parental stress on offspring telomeres, but this effect was no longer evident at the end of post-natal development. Instead, the effects of parental stress depended on the natural sources of stress that offspring experienced during post-natal development whereby some outcomes were improved under more stressful rearing conditions. Thus, the effects of parental stress on offspring telomeres and survival are context-dependent and may involve compensatory mechanisms of potential benefit under some circumstances.

Fitness Changes in Adolescent Girls Following In-School Combined Aerobic and Resistance Exercise: Interaction With Birthweight

PURPOSE

To assess the efficacy of a supervised in-school combined resistance and aerobic training program in adolescent girls and investigate whether responses differ according to birthweight.

METHODS

Participants (girls aged 13-17 y) were randomized either to an intervention replacing physical education (PE) classes with 2 × 60-minute training sessions per week (n = 58) or to a control group that continued to attend 2 × 60 minutes per week of curriculum PE (n = 41). We measured muscular fitness (handgrip, standing long jump, and sit-ups), cardiorespiratory fitness (20-m shuttle run), skinfolds, and lean body mass preintervention and postintervention and determined effect size (Hedge's g) differences between changes in these measures. We also compared changes within lower (<3000 g) and normal birthweight intervention and PE control subgroups.

RESULTS

The intervention group showed greater improvements in all the fitness measures and lean body mass (g = 0.22-0.48) and lower skinfold increases (g = 0.41) than PE controls. Within the intervention group, improvements in all fitness measures were larger in lower birthweight (g = 0.53-0.94) than in normal birthweight girls (g = 0.02-0.39).

CONCLUSION

Replacing curriculum PE with supervised training improved muscular and cardiorespiratory fitness and body composition outcomes in adolescent females. Our findings suggest an enhanced adaptive response to training in participants with lower birthweight which warrants further investigation.

Unstable Childhood, Adult Adversity, and Smoking Accelerate Biological Aging Among Middle-Age African Americans: Similar Findings for GrimAge and PoAm

Objectives: The recent biological clocks GrimAge and PoAm are robust predictors of morbidity and mortality. Little research, however, has investigated the factors that influence their ticking speed. No study has used multivariate analyses to examine whether childhood adversity, adult hardship, lifestyle practices, or some combination of these factors best explains acceleration of these indices. Methods: Using a sample of 506 middle-age African Americans, the present study investigated the extent to which childhood instability, adult adversity, and lifestyle predict accelerated GrimAge and PoAm. Results: The two clocks were highly correlated and the pattern of findings was very similar for the two measures. Childhood instability, adult financial hardship, and smoking were significant predictors of both clocks. Discussion: The findings support a life course perspective where both the long arm of childhood as well as later life conditions influence speed of aging. Similar results across the two clocks enhance confidence in the findings.

Impact of Early Life Socioeconomic Status on Decision Making in Older Adults Without Dementia

OBJECTIVES

A growing body of evidence points to the negative impact of early life socioeconomic status (SES) on health and cognitive outcomes in later life. However, the effect of early life SES on decision making in old age is not well understood. This study investigated the association of early life SES with decision making in a large community-based cohort of older adults without dementia from the Rush Memory and Aging Project.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Cross-sectional data from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center Memory and Aging Project was analyzed. Participants were 1044 community-dwelling older adults without dementia (M age = 81.15, SD = 7.49; 75.8% female; 5.4% non-White). Measures of financial and healthcare decision making and early life SES were collected, along with demographics, global cognition, and financial and health literacy.

RESULTS

Early life SES was positively associated with decision making (estimate = 0.218, p = 0.027), after adjustments for demographic covariates and global cognition, such that a one-unit increase in early life SES was equivalent to the effect of being four years younger in age as it pertains to decision making. A subsequent model demonstrated that the relationship was strongest in those with low literacy, and weakest for those with high literacy (estimate = -0.013, p = 0.029).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings from this study suggest that early life SES is associated with late life decision making and that improving literacy, a modifiable target for intervention, may buffer the negative impact of low early life SES on decision making in older adulthood.

Parental Income and Children's Life Course: Lessons from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

This article reviews how the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) has contributed to our understanding of the links between childhood economic conditions- in particular, the household incomes with very young children-and the economic attainment and health of those children when they reach adulthood. From its beginning, the PSID has provided data useful for addressing intergenerational questions. In the mid-1990s, PSID data supported a series of studies that link early childhood income to early adult attainments, particularly to completed schooling. At the same time, discoveries in neurobiology and epidemiology were beginning to provide details on the processes producing the observed correlations. These discoveries led to a more recent set of PSID-based studies that focus not only on labor market and behavioral outcomes, but also on links between income in the earliest stages of life (including the prenatal period) and adult health. Links between economic disadvantage in childhood and adult health, and the developmental neuroscience underlying those links, are promising areas for future research.

Individual differences in early body mass affect thermogenic performance and sibling interactions in litter huddles of the house mouse

We asked whether within-litter differences in early body mass are associated with differences in house mouse pups' thermogenic performance and whether such variation predicts individual differences in competitive interactions for thermally more advantageous positions in the huddle. We explored pups' thermogenic performance in isolation by measuring changes in (maximal) peripheral body temperatures during a 5-min thermal challenge using infrared thermography. Changes in peripheral body temperature were significantly explained by individual differences in body mass within a litter; relatively lighter individuals showed an overall quicker temperature decrease leading to lower body temperatures toward the end of the thermal challenge compared to heavier littermates. Within the litter huddle, relatively lighter pups with a lower thermogenic performance showed consistently more rooting and climbing behavior, apparently to reach the thermally advantageous center of the huddle. This suggests that within-litter variation in starting body mass affects the pups' thermal and behavioral responses to environmental challenges.

Climate warming is associated with smaller body size and shorter lifespans in moose near their southern range limit

Despite the importance of body size for individual fitness, population dynamics and community dynamics, the influence of climate change on growth and body size is inadequately understood, particularly for long-lived vertebrates. Although temporal trends in body size have been documented, it remains unclear whether these changes represent the adverse impact of climate change (environmental stress constraining phenotypes) or its mitigation (via phenotypic plasticity or evolution). Concerns have also been raised about whether climate change is indeed the causal agent of these phenotypic shifts, given the length of time-series analysed and that studies often do not evaluate - and thereby sufficiently rule out - other potential causes. Here, we evaluate evidence for climate-related changes in adult body size (indexed by skull size) over a 4-decade period for a population of moose (Alces alces) near the southern limit of their range whilst also considering changes in density, predation, and human activities. In particular, we document: (i) a trend of increasing winter temperatures and concurrent decline in skull size (decline of 19% for males and 13% for females) and (ii) evidence of a negative relationship between skull size and winter temperatures during the first year of life. These patterns could be plausibly interpreted as an adaptive phenotypic response to climate warming given that latitudinal/temperature clines are often accepted as evidence of adaptation to local climate. However, we also observed: (iii) that moose with smaller skulls had shorter lifespans, (iv) a reduction in lifespan over the 4-decade study period, and (v) a negative relationship between lifespan and winter temperatures during the first year of life. Those observations indicate that this phenotypic change is not an adaptive response to climate change. However, this decline in lifespan was not accompanied by an obvious change in population dynamics, suggesting that climate change may affect population dynamics and life-histories differently.

Childhood Disadvantage, Psychosocial Resiliency, and Later Life Functioning: Linking Early-Life Circumstances to Recovery From Mobility Limitation

Objective: There is limited knowledge about whether childhood disadvantage, defined as economic and health disadvantage, influences recovery from functional impairment. Method: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (2008-2010), this research explores whether childhood disadvantage shapes recovery from mobility limitation. In addition, this research examines whether measures of psychosocial resiliency such as mastery, optimism, and religiosity moderate the relationship between childhood disadvantage and recovery. Results: Childhood disadvantage appeared to shape recovery from mobility limitation in later life. Greater number of chronic childhood conditions and low maternal education decreased the odds of recovery. Mastery was a robust predictor of recovery and also a moderator of childhood disadvantage (i.e., moving for financial reasons) and recovery. Discussion: Findings suggest that mastery may be able to diminish the negative effects of financial hardship in childhood on recovery outcomes in later life.

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Stress in Late Adulthood: A Longitudinal Approach to Measuring Allostatic Load

Objectives: This study examines how the effects of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) may carry on into late adulthood. Methods: We examine how childhood SES affects both perceived stress and allostatic load, which is a cumulative measure of the body’s biologic response to chronic stress. We use the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, Waves 1 and 2, and suggest a novel method of incorporating a longitudinal allostatic load measure. Results: Individuals who grew up in low SES households have higher allostatic load scores in late adulthood, and this association is mediated mostly by educational attainment. Discussion: The longitudinal allostatic load measure shows similar results to the singular measures and allows us to include 2 time points into one outcome measure. Incorporating 2 separate time points into one measure is important because allostatic load is a measure of cumulative physiological dysregulation, and longitudinal data provide a more comprehensive measure.

Effects of parental socio-economic conditions on facial attractiveness

Socio-economic conditions during early life are known to affect later life outcomes such as health or social success. We investigated whether family socio-economic background may also affect facial attractiveness. We used the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (n = 8434) to analyze the association between an individual's parental socio-economic background (in terms of father's highest education and parental income) and that individual's facial attractiveness (estimated by rating of high school yearbook photographs when subjects were between 17 and 20 years old), controlling for subjects' sex, year of birth, and father's age at subjects' birth. Subjects' facial attractiveness increased with increasing father's highest educational attainment as well as increasing parental income, with the latter effect being stronger for female subjects as well. We conclude that early socio-economic conditions predict, to some extent, facial attractiveness in young adulthood.

Economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health: a population based study concerning risk accumulation, critical period and social mobility

BACKGROUND

Research in recent decades increasingly indicates the importance of conditions in early life for health in adulthood. Only few studies have investigated socioeconomic conditions in both childhood and adulthood in relation to health testing the risk accumulation, critical period, and social mobility hypotheses within the same setting. This study investigates the associations between economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health with reference to the accumulation, critical period and social mobility hypotheses in life course epidemiology, taking demographic, social support, trust and lifestyle factors into account.

METHODS

The public health survey in Skåne (southern Sweden) in 2008 is a cross-sectional postal questionnaire study based on a random sample, in which 28,198 persons aged 18-80 years participated (55% participation). Logistic regression models were used to investigate associations between economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health.

RESULTS

Three life-course socioeconomic models concerning the association between economic stress and self-rated health (SRH) were investigated. The results showed a graded association between the combined effect of childhood and adulthood economic stress and poor SRH in accordance with the accumulation hypothesis. Furthermore, upward social mobility showed a protecting effect and downward mobility increased odds ratios of poor SRH in accordance with the social mobility hypothesis. High/severe economic stress exposures in both stages of life were independently associated with poor SRH in adulthood. Furthermore, stratifying the study population into six age groups showed similar odds ratios of poor SRH regarding economic stress exposure in childhood and adulthood in all age groups among both men and women.

CONCLUSIONS

The accumulation and social mobility hypotheses were confirmed. The critical period model was confirmed in the sense that both economic stress in childhood and adulthood had independent effects on poor SRH. However, it was not confirmed in the sense that a particular window in time (in childhood or adulthood) had a specifically high impact on self-rated health.

Infant mortality, season of birth and the health of older Puerto Rican adults

The increasing prevalence of heart disease and diabetes among aging populations in low and middle income countries leads to questions regarding the degree to which endogenous early life exposures (exposures in utero) are important determinants of these health conditions. We devised a test using infant mortality (IMR) to verify if season of birth is a good indicator of early life (in utero) conditions that precipitate adult onset of disease. We linked annual IMR at the municipality (municipio) level from the late 1920s to early 1940s with individual birth year and place using a representative sample of older Puerto Rican adults (n = 1447) from the Puerto Rican Elderly: Health Conditions (PREHCO) study. We estimated the effects of season of birth on adult heart disease and diabetes for all respondents and then for respondents according to whether they were born when IMR was lower or higher, controlling for age, gender, obesity, respondent's educational level, adult behavior (smoking and exercise) and other early life exposures (childhood health, knee height and childhood socioeconomic status (SES)). The pattern of effects suggests that season of birth reflects endogenous causes: (1) odds of heart disease and diabetes were strong and significant for those born during the lean season in years when IMR was lower; (2) effects remained consistent even after controlling for other childhood conditions and adult behavior; but (3) no seasonality effects on adult health for adults born when IMR was higher. We conclude that in this population of older Puerto Rican adults there is continued support that the timing of adverse endogenous (in utero) conditions such as poor nutrition and infectious diseases is associated with adult heart disease and diabetes. It will be important to test the validity of these findings in other similar populations in the developing world.

Do early-life conditions predict functional health status in adulthood? The case of Mexico

Relatively few researchers have investigated early antecedents of adult functional limitations in developing countries. In this study, we assessed associations between childhood conditions and adult lower-body functional limitations (LBFL) as well as the potential mediating role of adult socioeconomic status, smoking, body mass index, and chronic diseases or symptoms. Based on data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) of individuals born prior to 1951 and contacted in 2001 and 2003, we found that childhood nutritional deprivation, serious health problems, and family background predict adult LBFL in Mexico. Adjustment for the potential mediators in adulthood attenuates these associations only to a modest degree.