Serum insulin-like growth factor-I concentrations in late middle age: no association with birthweight in three UK cohorts

Background: Small body size at birth and during infancy is associated with an increased risk of adult osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Fetal programming of the growth hormone–insulin-like growth factor (GH-IGF) axis may provide a mechanism for these epidemiological findings.Aims: To determine whether measurements of GH and IGF-I in late middle age were related to size at birth and in infancy.Methods: Overnight urinary GH excretion and fasting serum IGF-I were measured in 309 men and 193 women from Hertfordshire (born 1920–1930) for whom birthweight and weight at 1 year were recorded. Serum IGF-I was measured in men and women from Preston (n = 254, born 1935–1943) and Sheffield (n = 215, born 1939–1940) whose birthweight and other birth measurements were recorded.Results: Urinary GH and serum IGF-I were not related to birthweight, other measurements at birth, or weight at 1 year.Conclusion: In contrast to previous studies in children or young adults, these data do not support the hypothesis that IGF-I concentrations are programmed by intra-uterine events, as assessed by birthweight, in late middle age

Relation between cognitive dysfunction and pseudobulbar palsy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the relation between cognitive dysfunction and pseudobulbar features in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). METHODS: The performance of two patient groups, ALS with pseudobulbar palsy (n = 24) and ALS without pseudobulbar palsy (n = 28), was compared with 28 healthy age matched controls on an extensive neuropsychological battery. Tests used were the national adult reading test, short form of the WAIS-R, recognition memory test, Kendrick object learning test, paired associate learning, Wisconsin card sorting test, verbal fluency, Stroop and negative priming tests, a random movement joystick test, and a computerised Tower of Hanoi test. RESULTS: Tests of executive function showed a pronounced deficit on written verbal fluency in both ALS groups in comparison to controls, which tended to be more prominent in patients with ALS with pseudobulbar palsy. The random movement joystick test (a non-verbal test of intrinsic movement generation) showed an impairment in the generation of random sequences in patients with pseudobulbar palsy only. The computerised Tower of Hanoi showed a subtle planning impairment (shorter planning times) in all the patients with ALS compared with controls on trials requiring more complex solutions. In addition the pseudobulbar patients displayed shorter planning times on complex trials, and tended to solve these trials less accurately. There was also evidence of a deficit for all patients with ALS in comparison with controls on total errors and number of categories achieved on the Wisconsin card sorting test and a strong tendency towards an impairment on a task of selective attention and cognitive inhibition (negative priming). A word recognition memory deficit was showed across both ALS groups. CONCLUSIONS: This study elicited cognitive deficits (involving predominantly executive processes, with some evidence of memory impairment) in patients with ALS and further strengthened the link between ALS and frontal lobe dysfunction, this being more prominent in patients with pseudobulbar palsy. However, cognitive impairments suggestive of extramotor cortical involvement were not exclusive to this subgroup