Adherence to a healthy and potentially sustainable Nordic diet is associated with child development in The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

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Geographical variation in cardiovascular disease mortality in Norway: The role of life course socioeconomic position and parental health

Despite substantial geographical variation in cardiovascular (CVD) mortality within countries, little is known about whether this variation can be explained by individuals' life course socioeconomic position (SEP) or differences in family history of premature CVD deaths. Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the association between the county of residence at ages 50–59 and CVD death in Norwegians born between 1940 and 1959 and survived to at least age 60, using national data. Individual life course SEP and family history of premature CVD death reduced the geographical variation in CVD mortality across Norwegian counties, but some significant differences remained. Furthermore, CVD risk varied by residents' migration histories between two counties with distinct CVD and socioeconomic profiles.Geographical variation in cardiovascular disease mortality in Norway: The role of life course socioeconomic position and parental healthpublishedVersio

Fetal thoracic circumference in mid-pregnancy and infant lung function

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.Background and Aim: Impaired lung function in early infancy is associated with later wheeze and asthma, while fetal thoracic circumference (TC) predicts severity of neonatal lung hypoplasia. Exploring fetal origins of lung function in infancy, we aimed to determine if fetal TC in mid‐pregnancy was associated with infant lung function. Methods: From the prospective Scandinavian general population‐based PreventADALL mother–child birth cohort, all 851 3‐month‐old infants with tidal flow‐volume measurements in the awake state and ultrasound fetal size measures at 18 (min–max 16–22) weeks gestational age were included. Associations between fetal TC and time to peak tidal expiratory flow to expiratory time (tPTEF/tE) were analyzed in linear regression models. To account for gestational age variation, we adjusted TC for simultaneously measured general fetal size, by head circumference (TC/HC), abdominal circumference (TC/AC), and femur length (TC/FL). Multivariable models were adjusted for maternal age, maternal asthma, pre‐pregnancy body mass index, parity, nicotine exposure in utero, and infant sex. Results: The infants (47.8% girls) were born at mean (SD) gestational age of 40.2 (1.30) weeks. The mean (SD) tPTEF/tE was 0.39 (0.08). The mean (SD) TC/HC was 0.75 (0.04), TC/AC 0.87 (0.04), and TC/FL 4.17 (0.26), respectively. Neither TC/HC nor TC/AC were associated with infant tPTEF/tE while a week inverse association was observed between TC/FL and tPTEF/tE (β ^ = −0.03, 95% confidence interval [−0.05, −0.007], p = 0.01). Conclusion: Mid‐pregnancy fetal TC adjusted for fetal head or abdominal size was not associated with tPTEF/tE in healthy, awake 3‐month‐old infants, while a weak association was observed adjusting for fetal femur length.publishedVersio

Eczema distribution in girls and boys during infancy: A cohort study on atopic dermatitis

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Birth mode is associated with development of atopic dermatitis in infancy and early childhood

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Exploration of molecular methods for detecting individual inbreeding levels in mimulus

Inbreeding directly affects fitness and population dynamics by way of inbreeding depression and is particularly prevalent in plants and in small populations. While the importance of measuring fitness and inbreeding levels in natural populations is clear, it is difficult to do in practice. As an alternative, molecular methods have been developed for estimating individual inbreeding levels. These methods may also offer insight into fitness because in the presence of inbreeding depression, inbreeding level will negatively correlate with fitness. While some molecular methods for estimating inbreeding levels apply to any codominant marker, others have been specifically constructed for microsatellites, a type of genetic marker that roughly follows the stepwise mutation model (Ohta and Kimura, 1973). This model has provided the foundation for microsatellite-specific measures. Unlike conventional measures of inbreeding levels (e.g individual heterozygosity), microsatellite-specific measures possibly detect historical levels of inbreeding. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the correlation between various inbreeding measures and fitness. A literature review of empirical and theoretical treatments of the first microsatellite-specific measure, d² (Coulson et al., 1998), revealed that d² was sometimes, but not always, more correlated with fitness than was individual heterozygosity. The pattern in the literature suggests that populations may differ in their extent of historical inbreeding. The literature review also indicated that exploration of d² in closely related taxa of different selfing rates was still warranted. Furthermore, the analytical modeling of Tsitrone etal. (2001) provided the inspiration for the development of new microsatellite-specific measures that distinguish between small repeat differences but pool larger repeat differences together. An empirical study of microsatellite-specific measures for detecting individual inbreeding levels was carried out in four taxa with known differences in selfing rates in the Mimulus guttatus species complex. Genotype-fitness correlations are driven by inbreeding levels, extent of inbreeding depression, and linkage disequilibrium, all of which are influenced by selfing rate. It was hypothesized that different measures might best correlate with fitness in inbreeding taxa than in outbreeders. However no genotype-fitness correlations were observed for any measure or in any of the species. This study shows that even in the presence of within-population variation in inbreeding levels, genotype-fitness correlations may not be detectable. Although inbreeding issues are most pressing in small populations, molecular methods for detecting inbreeding level do not perform well under these circumstances (Ritland, 1996; Tsitrone et al., 2001).Medicine, Faculty ofMedical Genetics, Department ofGraduat

Associations between having breakfast and reading literacy achievement among Nordic primary school students

Having breakfast is associated with improved diet quality, cognitive- and academic performance and can therefore positively impact learning and health, although the impact on reading literacy is unknown in the Nordic countries. The aim of this study was to assess the association between having breakfast often versus rarely and reading literacy achievement based on Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) from 2016. The sample consisted of Danish (N = 3508), Finnish (N = 4896), Norwegian (N = 4232) and Swedish (N = 4525) students, 10–11 years old. Students self-reported their frequency of having breakfast. Linear regression analysis (adjusted for socio-economic status and gender) showed that those who often vs. rarely had breakfast achieved a higher reading literacy score. The results suggest that having breakfast may be important for reading literacy achievement even after adjusting for socioeconomic status. This potential relationship between breakfast intake and students’ academic achievement should be given priority for further research and practice as breakfast is a modifiable factor that can be both improved and be intervened on

Associations between having breakfast and reading literacy achievement among Nordic primary school students

Having breakfast is associated with improved diet quality, cognitive- and academic performance and can therefore positively impact learning and health, although the impact on reading literacy is unknown in the Nordic countries. The aim of this study was to assess the association between having breakfast often versus rarely and reading literacy achievement based on Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) from 2016. The sample consisted of Danish (N = 3508), Finnish (N = 4896), Norwegian (N = 4232) and Swedish (N = 4525) students, 10–11 years old. Students self-reported their frequency of having breakfast. Linear regression analysis (adjusted for socio-economic status and gender) showed that those who often vs. rarely had breakfast achieved a higher reading literacy score. The results suggest that having breakfast may be important for reading literacy achievement even after adjusting for socioeconomic status. This potential relationship between breakfast intake and students’ academic achievement should be given priority for further research and practice as breakfast is a modifiable factor that can be both improved and be intervened on