Prenatal Stress due to a Natural Disaster Predicts Adiposity in Childhood: The Iowa Flood Study

Prenatal stress can affect lifelong physical growth, including increased obesity risk. However, human studies remain limited. Natural disasters provide models of independent stressors unrelated to confounding maternal characteristics. We assessed degree of objective hardship and subjective distress in women pregnant during severe flooding. At ages 2.5 and 4 years we assessed body mass index (BMI), subscapular plus triceps skinfolds (SS + TR, an index of total adiposity), and SS: TR ratio (an index of central adiposity) in their children (n=106). Hierarchical regressions controlled first for several potential confounds. Controlling for these, flood exposure during early gestation predicted greater BMI increase from age 2.5 to 4, as well as total adiposity at 2.5. Greater maternal hardship and distress due to the floods, as well as other nonflood life events during pregnancy, independently predicted greater increase in total adiposity between 2.5 and 4 years. These results support the hypothesis that prenatal stress increases adiposity beginning in childhood and suggest that early gestation is a sensitive period. Results further highlight the additive effects of maternal objective and subjective stress, life events, and depression, emphasizing the importance of continued studies on multiple, detailed measures of maternal mental health and experience in pregnancy and child growth

Challenges and opportunities in rapid disaster research: lessons from the field in New Mexico and Vanuatu

Rapid research is essential to assess impacts in communities affected by disasters, particularly those communities made “hard-to-reach” due to their active marginalization across history and in contemporary practices. In this article, we describe two rapid research projects developed to assess needs for and experiences of communities hard-hit by disasters. The first is a project on the COVID-19 pandemic in southern New Mexico (USA) that was developed to provide information to local agencies that are deploying programs to rebuild and revitalize marginalized communities. The second is a project on population displacement due to a volcanic eruption in Vanuatu, a lower-middle income country in the South Pacific, with mental and physical health outcomes data shared with the Vanuatu Ministry of Health. We describe the similar and unique challenges that arose doing rapid research in these two different contexts, the potential broader impacts of the research, and a synthesis of lessons learned. We discuss the challenges of rapidly changing rules and regulations, lack of baseline data, lack of survey instruments validated for specific populations and in local languages, limited availability of community partners, finding funding for rapid deployment of projects, rapidly training and working with research assistants, health and safety concerns of researchers and participants, and communicating with local and international partners. We also specifically discuss how we addressed our own personal challenges while also conducting time-intensive rapid research. In both studies, researchers shared results with governmental and non-governmental partners who may use the data to inform the design of their own relief programs. While different in context, type of disaster, and research strategy, our discussion of these projects provides insights into common lessons learned for working with communities at elevated risk for the worst outcomes during disasters, such as the need for flexibility, compromise, and good working relationships with community partners

Characterizing Genetic Diversity of Contemporary Pacific Chickens Using Mitochondrial DNA Analyses

Background\ud Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region (HVR) sequences of prehistoric Polynesian chicken samples reflect dispersal of two haplogroups—D and E—by the settlers of the Pacific. The distribution of these chicken haplogroups has been used as an indicator of human movement. Recent analyses suggested similarities between prehistoric Pacific and South American chicken samples, perhaps reflecting prehistoric Polynesian introduction of the chicken into South America. These analyses have been heavily debated. The current distribution of the D and E lineages among contemporary chicken populations in the Western Pacific is unclear, but might ultimately help to inform debates about the movements of humans that carried them.\ud \ud Objectives\ud We sought to characterize contemporary mtDNA diversity among chickens in two of the earliest settled archipelagoes of Remote Oceania, the Marianas and Vanuatu.\ud \ud Methods\ud We generated HVR sequences for 43 chickens from four islands in Vanuatu, and for 5 chickens from Guam in the Marianas.\ud \ud Results\ud Forty samples from Vanuatu and three from Guam were assigned to haplogroup D, supporting this as a Pacific chicken haplogroup that persists in the Western Pacific. Two haplogroup E lineages were observed in Guam and two in Vanuatu. Of the E lineages in Vanuatu, one was identical to prehistoric Vanuatu and Polynesian samples and the other differed by one polymorphism. Contrary to our expectations, we observed few globally distributed domesticate lineages not associated with Pacific chicken dispersal. This might suggest less European introgression of chickens into Vanuatu than expected. If so, the E lineages might represent lineages maintained from ancient Pacific chicken introductions. The Vanuatu sample might thus provide an opportunity to distinguish between maintained ancestral Pacific chicken lineages and replacement by global domesticates through genomic analyses, which could resolve questions of contemporary haplogroup E chicken relationships and inform interpretations of debated sequences from archaeological samples

Dietary change mediates relationships between stress during pregnancy and infant head circumference measures: the QF2011 study

Prenatal maternal stress can adversely affect birth outcomes, likely reflecting effects of maternal stress hormones on fetal development. Maternal stress might also induce behavioural changes, such as dietary change, that might influence fetal development. Few studies have documented relationships between stress and dietary change in pregnancy. We analysed stress and dietary change among 222 pregnant women exposed to the 2011 Queensland Floods. We assessed women's objective hardship, subjective distress and cognitive appraisal of the disaster; changes in their diets and their associations with infants' gestational age, weight, length and head circumference at birth, head circumference to birth length ratio (HC/BL) and ponderal index. Greater objective hardship was correlated with more negative dietary change, skipped meals and skipped multivitamins. There were no direct effects of stress or dietary change on birth outcomes. However, we observed an interactive effect of dietary change and exposure timing on head circumference for gestational age (HC for GA) (p = 0.010) and a similar trend for HC/BL (p = 0.064). HC for GA and HC/BL were larger among children whose mothers experienced negative changes to their diet in early pregnancy compared with later pregnancy, consistent with a ‘head-sparing’ response with early gestation exposure. Further analyses indicated that dietary change mediates the relationship between objective hardship because of the floods and these outcomes. This is the first report of relationships among an independent stressor, dietary change and birth outcomes. It highlights another possible mechanism in the relationship between prenatal maternal stress and child development that could guide future research and interventions

DNA methylation mediates the effect of maternal cognitive appraisal of a disaster in pregnancy on the child’s C-peptide secretion in adolescence: Project Ice Storm

<div><p>Animal and human studies suggest that prenatal exposure to stress is associated with adverse health outcomes such as type 2 diabetes. Epigenetic modification, such as DNA methylation, is considered one possible underlying mechanism. The 1998 Quebec ice storm provides a unique opportunity to study an independent prenatal stressor on child outcomes. C-peptide is the best measure of endogenous insulin secretion and is widely used in the clinical management of patients with diabetes. The objectives of this study are to determine 1) the extent to which prenatal exposure to disaster-related stress (maternal objective hardship and maternal cognitive appraisal) influences children’s C-peptide secretion, and 2) whether DNA methylation of diabetes-related genes mediates the effects of prenatal stress on C-peptide secretion. Children’s (n = 30) C-peptide secretion in response to an oral glucose tolerance test were assessed in blood at 13½ years. DNA methylation levels of selected type 1 and 2 diabetes-related genes were chosen based upon the genes associated with prenatal maternal objective hardship and/or cognitive appraisal levels. Bootstrapping analyses were performed to determine the mediation effect of DNA methylation. We found that children whose mothers experienced higher objective hardship exhibited higher C-peptide secretion. Cognitive appraisal was not directly associated with C-peptide secretion. DNA methylation of diabetes-related genes had a positive mediation effect of objective hardship on C-peptide secretion: higher objective hardship predicted higher C-peptide secretion through DNA methylation. Negative mediation effects of cognitive appraisal were observed: negative cognitive appraisal predicted higher C-peptide secretion through DNA methylation. However, only one gene, <i>LTA</i>, remained a significant mediator of cognitive appraisal on C-peptide secretion after the conservative Bonferroni multiple corrections. Our findings suggest that DNA methylation could act as an intervening variable between prenatal stress and metabolic outcomes, highlighting the importance of epigenetic mechanisms in response to environmental factors.</p></div

Results of DNA methylation of genes that significantly mediated the effect of cognitive appraisal on C-peptide outcome in initial analyses.

<p>(The mediation effect that remained significant after multiple correction is highlighted in bold).</p

Mediation analysis on the relationship between exposure cognitive appraisal and C-peptide secretion.

<p>The effect of cognitive appraisal on the DNA methylation of cg16280132 from LTA is -0.548 (path a); the effect of the DNA methylation of cg16280132 on C-peptide level, controlling for cognitive appraisal is 1.144 (path b); the direct effect of cognitive appraisal on C-peptide level, controlling for the DNA methylation of cg16280132, is 0.661 (path c’); the mediating effect of cognitive appraisal on C-peptide level through DNA methylation of cg16280132 is -0.627 (path a*b). Together, the combination of cognitive appraisal and DNA methylation of cg16280132 explained 26.14% of the variance in C-peptide secretion.</p

The characteristics of the mothers and children (N = 30).

<p>The characteristics of the mothers and children (N = 30).</p