Bone Mineral Density in Healthy Female Adolescents According to Age, Bone Age and Pubertal Breast Stage

This study was designed to evaluate bone mineral density (BMD) in healthy female Brazilian adolescents in five groups looking at chronological age, bone age, and pubertal breast stage, and determining BMD behavior for each classification. Seventy-two healthy female adolescents aged between 10 to 20 incomplete years were divided into five groups and evaluated for calcium intake, weight, height, body mass index (BMI), pubertal breast stage, bone age, and BMD. Bone mass was measured by bone densitometry (DXA) in lumbar spine and proximal femur regions, and the total body. BMI was estimated by Quetelet index. Breast development was assessed by Tanner's criteria and skeletal maturity by bone age. BMD comparison according to chronologic and bone age, and breast development were analyzed by Anova, with Scheffe's test used to find significant differences between groups at P≤0.05. BMD (g·cm(-2)) increased in all studied regions as age advanced, indicating differences from the ages of 13 to 14 years. This group differed to the 10 and 11 to 12 years old groups for lumbar spine BMD (0.865±0.127 vs 0.672±0.082 and 0.689±0.083, respectively) and in girls at pubertal development stage B3, lumbar spine BMD differed from B5 (0.709±0.073 vs 0.936±0.130) and whole body BMD differed from B4 and B5 (0.867±0.056 vs 0.977±0.086 and 1.040±0.080, respectively). Bone mineralization increased in the B3 breast maturity group, and the critical years for bone mass acquisition were between 13 and 14 years of age for all sites evaluated by densitometry

A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands.

We discovered a highly virulent variant of subtype-B HIV-1 in the Netherlands. One hundred nine individuals with this variant had a 0.54 to 0.74 log <sub>10</sub> increase (i.e., a ~3.5-fold to 5.5-fold increase) in viral load compared with, and exhibited CD4 cell decline twice as fast as, 6604 individuals with other subtype-B strains. Without treatment, advanced HIV-CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences-is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant. Age, sex, suspected mode of transmission, and place of birth for the aforementioned 109 individuals were typical for HIV-positive people in the Netherlands, which suggests that the increased virulence is attributable to the viral strain. Genetic sequence analysis suggests that this variant arose in the 1990s from de novo mutation, not recombination, with increased transmissibility and an unfamiliar molecular mechanism of virulence