A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

Rapid production of transgenic wheat plants by direct bombardment of cultured immature embryos

6 Pags.We have developed an improved protocol for the rapid and efficient production of transgenic wheat. Three plasmids, each containing the selectable bar gene for resistance to the herbicide Basta and the beta-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene, were delivered via particle bombardment, directly into immature embryos of two spring and one winter cultivar of wheat four days to two months after culture. Resistant calli were selected on phosphinothricin (PPT) media and screened for histochemical GUS activity. Twelve independent callus lines showing phosphinothricin acetyltransferase (PAT) activity were recovered from the bombardment of 544 explants (374 immature embryos and 170 one or two month old calli). R0 plants were regenerated from seven of these lines, of which so far five have produced R1 progeny, and two of the latter have produced R2 progeny. PAT activity was detected in each of the plants tested from the seven R0 lines, as well as in a 1:1 or 3:1 ratio in R1 plants following cross or self pollination, respectively. Resistance to topical application of Basta was seen in PAT positive plants and transgenic progeny. Molecular analysis by Southern hybridization showed the presence of the bar gene in all PAT positive R0 and R1 plants analyzed. Hybridization of the bar gene probe with high molecular weight DNA further confirmed integration into nuclear DNA. Both male and female transmission of the bar gene, and its segregation as a dominant Mendelian trait in R1 and R2 plants, were demonstrated. Flowering transgenic R0 plants could be obtained in 7–9 months following excision and culture of immature embryos.Peer reviewe