Home management practices of twenty-five homemakers employed with rotating work hours

The general purpose of this exploratory study of twenty-five homemakers who were employed fulltime on rotating shifts was to ascertain and compare their home management practices and associated problems, satisfactions, and desired changes when on each rotating work shift and work break. The respondents were married with husband and child or children of preschool and/or school age living at home and had no other adult residing with the family. An interpretation of the results revealed that for a majority of respondents, costs for household operations and/or family care were affected during certain work periods; the day shift was identified as the high cost shift and the 4 P.M. to midnight shift as the low cost one. Essentially, the homemakers were responsible for performing all homemaking tasks with very limited assistance from others. They indicated to some degree purposeful management in accomplishing homemaking tasks and family activities and usually found it necessary to make some adjustments in their home management practices, particularly child care, during various intervals of the shift schedule

Large meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies five loci for lean body mass

Lean body mass, consisting mostly of skeletal muscle, is important for healthy aging. We performed a genome-wide association study for whole body (20 cohorts of European ancestry with n = 38,292) and appendicular (arms and legs) lean body mass (n = 28,330) measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry or bioelectrical impedance analysis, adjusted for sex, age, height, and fat mass. Twenty-one single-nucleotide polymorphisms were significantly associated with lean body mass either genome wide (p < 5 x 10(-8)) or suggestively genome wide (p < 2.3 x 10(-6)). Replication in 63,475 (47,227 of European ancestry) individuals from 33 cohorts for whole body lean body mass and in 45,090 (42,360 of European ancestry) subjects from 25 cohorts for appendicular lean body mass was successful for five single-nucleotide polymorphisms in/ near HSD17B11, VCAN, ADAMTSL3, IRS1, and FTO for total lean body mass and for three single-nucleotide polymorphisms in/ near VCAN, ADAMTSL3, and IRS1 for appendicular lean body mass. Our findings provide new insight into the genetics of lean body mass

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