BACKGROUND Childhood obesity remains a prominent public health problem. Walkable built environments may prevent excess weight gain. OBJECTIVES We examined the association of walkable built environment characteristics with body mass index (BMI) z-score among a large sample of children and adolescents. METHODS We used geocoded residential address data from electronic health records of 49,770 ...

Identifying community structure in networks is an issue of particular interest in network science. The modularity introduced by Newman and Girvan is the most popular quality function for community detection in networks. In this study, we identify a problem in the concept of modularity and suggest a solution to overcome this problem. Specifically, we obtain a new quality function for community d...

OBJECTIVE Epidemiological studies have shown an association between OA and increased BMD. To explore the nature of this relationship, we examined whether the risk of OA is increased in individuals with high bone mass (HBM), in whom BMD is assumed to be elevated due to a primary genetic cause. METHODS A total of 335,115 DXA scans were screened to identify HBM index cases (defined by DXA scan a...

BACKGROUND Most existing reports indicate that body weight gradually increases following marital status and thereby enhances health status and decreases mortality; however, the association between marital status and the metabolic syndrome (MetS) has not been thoroughly investigated in a longitudinal study. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the potential effects of marital st...

The median height z-score for paediatric patients on dialysis was −2.1 and for those with a functioning transplant −1.3. Children transplanted before the age of 12 years improved their height z-score over the subsequent five years, whereas those older than 12 maintained their height z-score, with all transplanted patients having a similar median height z-score after five years of starting renal...

This study aims to compare the performance of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height-ratio (WHtR) to predict the presence of at least 3 main CV risk factors in US adolescents. A total of 3621 adolescents (boys: 49.9%) aged 12-17 years from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2012) were included in this study. Measured CV risk factors inclu...

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that obese children have lower cognitive function, demonstrate poorer physical performance and are more susceptible to social-emotional problems. AIMS To describe associations between human physical growth, cognitive development, physical fitness and social-emotional characteristics of obese and non-obese children and to verify the predictors of intellectual c...

OBJECTIVE To develop a new bioinformatic method in the noninvasive prenatal identification of common fetal aneuploidies using massively parallel sequencing on maternal plasma. METHODS Massively parallel sequencing was performed on plasma DNA samples from 108 pregnant women (median gestation: 12(+5) week) immediately before chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis. Data were analysed u...

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between several physical activity (PA) and dietary behaviours and BMI Z-score and to investigate the relationship between changes in these variables and in the BMI Z-score over a 4-year period from childhood to adolescence. DESIGN Longitudinal study in which children were included in the fifth grade and measured for four consecutive years. Dietary and PA ...

OBJECTIVE. Bone health is a major concern in patients with Turner syndrome (TS). There are few studies assessing bone mineral status in TS adolescents and none have reported a clear relationship with the risk of fracture. We assessed bone mineral status at three different skeletal sites by two different densitometric techniques in a group of TS adolescents. DESIGN. In 24 TS adolescents (17.1±3....