Underweight, overweight, and obesity in childhood and adolescence are associated with adverse health consequences throughout the life-course. Our aim was to estimate worldwide trends in mean body-mass index (BMI) and a comprehensive set of BMI categories that cover underweight to obesity in children and adolescents, and to compare trends with those of adults.We pooled 2416 population-based studies with measurements of height and weight on 128·9 million participants aged 5 years and older, including 31·5 million aged 5-19 years. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1975 to 2016 in 200 countries for mean BMI and for prevalence of BMI in the following categories for children and adolescents aged 5-19 years: more than 2 SD below the median of the WHO growth reference for children and adolescents (referred to as moderate and severe underweight hereafter), 2 SD to more than 1 SD below the median (mild underweight), 1 SD below the median to 1 SD above the median (healthy weight), more than 1 SD to 2 SD above the median (overweight but not obese), and more than 2 SD above the median (obesity).Regional change in age-standardised mean BMI in girls from 1975 to 2016 ranged from virtually no change (-0·01 kg/m2 per decade; 95% credible interval -0·42 to 0·39, posterior probability [PP] of the observed decrease being a true decrease=0·5098) in eastern Europe to an increase of 1·00 kg/m2 per decade (0·69-1·35, PP>0·9999) in central Latin America and an increase of 0·95 kg/m2 per decade (0·64-1·25, PP>0·9999) in Polynesia and Micronesia. The range for boys was from a non-significant increase of 0·09 kg/m2 per decade (-0·33 to 0·49, PP=0·6926) in eastern Europe to an increase of 0·77 kg/m2 per decade (0·50-1·06, PP>0·9999) in Polynesia and Micronesia. Trends in mean BMI have recently flattened in northwestern Europe and the high-income English-speaking and Asia-Pacific regions for both sexes, southwestern Europe for boys, and central and Andean Latin America for girls. By contrast, the rise in BMI has accelerated in east and south Asia for both sexes, and southeast Asia for boys. Global age-standardised prevalence of obesity increased from 0·7% (0·4-1·2) in 1975 to 5·6% (4·8-6·5) in 2016 in girls, and from 0·9% (0·5-1·3) in 1975 to 7·8% (6·7-9·1) in 2016 in boys; the prevalence of moderate and severe underweight decreased from 9·2% (6·0-12·9) in 1975 to 8·4% (6·8-10·1) in 2016 in girls and from 14·8% (10·4-19·5) in 1975 to 12·4% (10·3-14·5) in 2016 in boys. Prevalence of moderate and severe underweight was highest in India, at 22·7% (16·7-29·6) among girls and 30·7% (23·5-38·0) among boys. Prevalence of obesity was more than 30% in girls in Nauru, the Cook Islands, and Palau; and boys in the Cook Islands, Nauru, Palau, Niue, and American Samoa in 2016. Prevalence of obesity was about 20% or more in several countries in Polynesia and Micronesia, the Middle East and north Africa, the Caribbean, and the USA. In 2016, 75 (44-117) million girls and 117 (70-178) million boys worldwide were moderately or severely underweight. In the same year, 50 (24-89) million girls and 74 (39-125) million boys worldwide were obese.The rising trends in children's and adolescents' BMI have plateaued in many high-income countries, albeit at high levels, but have accelerated in parts of Asia, with trends no longer correlated with those of adults.Wellcome Trust, AstraZeneca Young Health Programme.
Objective: To document the relative importance of endogenous sex steroids in modulating the frequency of orgasms, the dominant aspect of sexual behaviour in healthy eugonadal men. Design: Measurement of adrenal and testicular sex steroids in a sample of army recruits and study of their relation to frequency of orgasms ascertained by questionnaire after potential confounding variables were controlled for. Setting: Military campus and military hospital laboratories in Athens, Greece. Subjects: 92 consecutively enrolled healthy male recruits aged 18-22 years. Main outcome measures: Weekly number of orgasms. Serum concentrations of testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate, dihydrotestosterone, oestradiol, oestrone, δ-4-androstenedione, and sex hormone binding globulin. Results: Serum dihydrotestosterone concentration was the only independent hormonal predictor of the frequency of orgasms; an increase in concentration of 1.36 nmol/l (about 2 SD) corresponded to an average increase of one orgasm a week. Conclusions: Differences in concentrations of circulating dihydrotestosterone within the normal range may represent a major predictor of sexual activity in healthy young men.
Key messages
Key messages The hormone that determines sexual behavior has not yet been conclusively identified in healthy adults This study shows that dihydrotestosterone is the dominant hormonal determinant of the frequency of orgasms in young healthy adults The frequency of orgasms depends not only on psychosocial factors but on variation of dihydrotestosterone concentrations within the normal range
<p>PDF file - 127K, Relative risks (RR-s)* and 95% confidence intervals (CI-s) of colorectal cancer associated with a doubling in leptin and sOB-R concentrations, by subgroups, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), 1992-2003</p>
<div>Abstract<p>The 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 gene (<i>HSD17B1</i>) encodes 17HSD1, which catalyzes the final step of estradiol biosynthesis. Despite the important role of <i>HSD17B1</i> in hormone metabolism, few epidemiologic studies of <i>HSD17B1</i> and breast cancer have been conducted. This study includes 5,370 breast cancer cases and 7,480 matched controls from five large cohorts in the Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium. We characterized variation in <i>HSD17B1</i> by resequencing and dense genotyping a multiethnic sample and identified haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (htSNP) that capture common variation within a 33.3-kb region around <i>HSD17B1</i>. Four htSNPs, including the previously studied SNP rs605059 (<i>S312G</i>), were genotyped to tag five common haplotypes in all cases and controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) for disease. We found no evidence of association between common <i>HSD17B1</i> haplotypes or htSNPs and overall risk of breast cancer. The OR for each haplotype relative to the most common haplotype ranged from 0.98 to 1.07 (omnibus test for association: <i>X</i><sup>2</sup> = 3.77, <i>P</i> = 0.58, 5 degrees of freedom). When cases were subdivided by estrogen receptor (ER) status, two common haplotypes were associated with ER-negative tumors (test for trend, <i>P</i>s = 0.0009 and 0.0076; <i>n</i> = 353 cases). <i>HSD17B1</i> variants that are common in Caucasians are not associated with overall risk of breast cancer; however, there was an association among the subset of ER-negative tumors. Although the probability that these ER-negative findings are false-positive results is high, these findings were consistent across each cohort examined and warrant further study. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(4): 2468-75)</p></div>
<p>PDF file - 80K, Relative risks (RR-s) and 95% confidence intervals (CI-s) of colon, rectal and colorectal cancer according to quintiles of free leptin index (FLI), the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), 1992-2003</p>
'%3e%3cpath fill='%23012169' d='M0 0v30h60V0z'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='6' d='m0 0 60 30m0-30L0 30'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23C8102E' stroke-width='4' d='m0 0 60 30m0-30L0 30' clip-path='url(%23b)'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='10' d='M30 0v30M0 15h60'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23C8102E' stroke-width='6' d='M30 0v30M0 15h60'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
