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- af Geijerstam, Agnes, et al.
(author)
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Children in the household and risk of severe COVID-19 during the first three waves of the pandemic: a prospective registry-based cohort study of 1.5 million Swedish men
- 2022
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In: Bmj Open. - : BMJ. - 2044-6055. ; 12:8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective To investigate whether Swedish men living with children had elevated risk for severe COVID-19 or infection with SARS-CoV-2 during the first three waves of the pandemic. Design Prospective registry-based cohort study. Participants 1 557 061 Swedish men undergoing military conscription between 1968 and 2005 at a mean age of 18.3 (SD 0.73) years. Main outcome measures Infection with SARS-CoV-2 and hospitalisation due to COVID-19 from March 2020 to September 2021. Results There was a protective association between preschool children at home and hospitalisation due to COVID-19 during the first and third waves compared with only older or no children at all, with ORs (95% CIs) 0.63 (0.46 to 0.88) and 0.75 (0.68 to 0.94) respectively. No association was observed for living with children 6-12 years old, but for 13-17 years old, the risk increased. Age in 2020 did not explain these associations. Further adjustment for socioeconomic and health factors did not attenuate the results. Exposure to preschool children also had a protective association with testing positive with SARS-CoV-2, with or without hospitalisation, OR=0.91 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.93), while living with children of other ages was associated with increased odds of infection. Conclusions Cohabiting with preschool children was associated with reduced risk for severe COVID-19. Living with school-age children between 6 and 12 years had no association with severe COVID-19, but sharing the household with teenagers and young adults was associated with elevated risk. Our results are of special interest since preschools and compulsory schools (age 6-15 years) in Sweden did not close in 2020.
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| 2. |
- af Geijerstam, Agnes, et al.
(author)
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Fitness, strength and severity of COVID-19: a prospective register study of 1 559 187 Swedish conscripts
- 2021
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In: BMJ Open. - : BMJ. - 2044-6055. ; 11:7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective To investigate the possible connection between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscle strength in early adulthood and severity of COVID-19 later in life. Design Prospective registry-based cohort study. Participants 1 559 187 Swedish men, undergoing military conscription between 1968 and 2005 at a mean age of 18.3 (SD 0.73) years. Main outcome measures Hospitalisation, intensive care or death due to COVID-19 from March to September 2020, in relation to CRF and muscle strength. Results High CRF in late adolescence and early adulthood had a protective association with severe COVID-19 later in life with OR (95% CI) 0.76 (0.67 to 0.85) for hospitalisation (n=2 006), 0.61 (0.48 to 0.78) for intensive care (n=445) and 0.56 (0.37 to 0.85) for mortality (n=149), compared with the lowest category of CRF. The association remains unchanged when controlled for body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, chronic diseases and parental education level at baseline, and incident cardiovascular disease before 2020. Moreover, lower muscle strength in late adolescence showed a linear association with a higher risk of all three outcomes when controlled for BMI and height. Conclusions Physical fitness at a young age is associated with severity of COVID-19 many years later. This underscores the necessity to increase the general physical fitness of the population to offer protection against future viral pandemics.
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| 3. |
- Arvidsson, Louise, et al.
(author)
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BMI, eating habits and sleep in relation to salivary counts of mutans streptococci in children - the IDEFICS Sweden study
- 2016
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In: Public Health Nutrition. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1368-9800 .- 1475-2727. ; 19:6, s. 1088-1092
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate the association between salivary counts of mutans streptococci (MS) and children's weight status, while considering associated covariates. MS ferments carbohydrates from the diet and contributes to caries by lowering the pH in dental plaque. In adults, high counts of MS in saliva have been associated with overweight, but this has not been shown in children. Design: Cross-sectional study investigating salivary counts of MS, BMI Z-score, waist circumference, meal frequency, sugar propensity and sleep duration, in children. Setting: West Sweden. Subjects: Children (n 271) aged 4-11 years. Results: Medium-high counts of MS were positively associated with higher BMI Z-score (OR=1.6; 95 % CI 1.1, 2.3). Positive associations were also found between medium-high counts of MS and more frequent meals per day (OR=1.5; 95 % CI 1.1, 2.2), greater percentage of sugar-rich foods consumed (OR=1.1; 95 % CI 1.0, 1.3) and female sex (OR=2.4; 95 % CI 1.1, 5.4). A negative association was found between medium-high counts of MS and longer sleep duration (OR=0.5; 95 % CI 0.3, 1.0). Conclusions: BMI Z-score was associated with counts of MS. Promoting adequate sleep duration and limiting the intake frequency of sugar-rich foods and beverages could provide multiple benefits in public health interventions aimed at reducing dental caries and childhood overweight.
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| 7. |
- Berg, Christina, 1963, et al.
(author)
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Normal weight adiposity in a Swedish population: how well is cardiovascular risk associated with excess body fat captured by BMI?
- 2015
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In: Obesity Science & Practice. - : Wiley. - 2055-2238. ; 1:1, s. 50-58
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective The aim of this study was to examine how well body mass index (BMI) reflects cardiovascular risk associated with excess adiposity in a Swedish population by examining the association between body fat, BMI and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods A total of 3,010 adults participated. Normal weight adiposity was defined as the combination of BMI<25 kg/m2 and percentage body fat ≥35% for women and ≥25% for men. Associations with blood pressure, blood lipids, apolipoproteins and C-reactive protein were analysed in age-adjusted regression models. Results The majority of the individuals with overweight and obesity were correctly classified to adiposity, while a wide range of body fat was observed among the normal weight subjects. In total, 9% of the participants were categorised as normal weight with adiposity. Compared with the normal weight leanness group, participants with normal weight adiposity had higher levels of serum triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, C-reactive protein, apolipoptotein B and the apolipoprotein B/A-I ratio. In normal weight men, adiposity was also associated with higher blood pressure and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Conclusions Higher percentage of body fat was associated with less favourable risk factor profile even in subjects who were normal weight. Thus, it might be relevant to screen for metabolic risk factors in the upper end of the normal weight category.
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| 8. |
- Bogl, L. H., et al.
(author)
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A within-sibling pair analysis of lifestyle behaviours and BMI z-score in the multi-centre I.Family study
- 2019
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In: Nutrition Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases. - : Elsevier BV. - 0939-4753. ; 29:6, s. 580-589
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background and aims: By investigating differences in lifestyle behaviours and BMI in sibling pairs, family-level confounding is minimized and causal inference is improved, compared to cross-sectional studies of unrelated children. Thus, we aimed to investigate within-sibling pair differences in different lifestyle behaviours and differences in BMI z-scores in children and adolesents. Methods and results: We examined three groups of sibling pairs 1) all same-sex sibling pairs with maximum 4 years age difference (n = 1209 pairs from 1072 families in 8 countries, mean age 10.7 years, standard deviation 2.4 years), 2) sibling pairs discordant for overweight (n = 262) and 3) twin pairs (n = 85). Usual dietary intake was estimated by 24-h recalls and time spent in light (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was measured by accelerometers. Screen time, sleep and dieting for weight loss were assessed by questionnaires. Within all 3 groups of sibling pairs, more time in MVPA was associated with lower BMI z-score. Higher energy intake was associated with higher BMI z-score within twin pairs and within all sibling pairs who were not currently dieting for weight loss. Regarding LPA, screen time or sleep duration, no or inconsistent associations were observed for the three groups of sibling pairs. Conclusions: MVPA and energy intake were associated with BMI differences within sibling and twin pairs growing up in the same home, thus independent of family-level confounding factors. Future studies should explore whether genetic variants regulating appetite or energy expenditure behaviours account for weight differences in sibling pairs. (C) 2019 The Italian Society of Diabetology, the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
- Bogl, Leonie H, et al.
(author)
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Like me, like you - relative importance of peers and siblings on children's fast food consumption and screen time but not sports club participation depends on age.
- 2020
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In: The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1479-5868. ; 17:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Lifestyle interventions to prevent paediatric obesity often target family and peer settings; their success is likely to depend on the influence that peers and families exert on children's lifestyle behaviors at different developmental stages.First, to determine whether children's lifestyle behavior more closely resembles their peers' or siblings' behaviors. Secondly, to investigate longitudinally whether children's behavioral change is predicted by that of their peers or their siblings as they grow older.The European prospective IDEFICS/I.Family cohort (baseline survey: 2007/2008, first follow-up: 2009/2010, and second follow-up: 2013/2014) aims at investigating risk factors for overweight and related behaviors during childhood and adolescence. The present investigation includes 2694 observations of children and their siblings aged 2 to 18years. Peers were defined as same-sex, same-age children in the same community and identified from the full cohort. The longitudinal analysis (mean follow-up time: 3.7years) includes 525sibling pairs. Children's lifestyle behaviors including fast food consumption (frequency/week), screen time (hours/week) and sports club participation (hours/week) were assessed by questionnaire. Data were analyzed using multilevel linear models.Children's lifestyle behavior was associated with the respective behavior of their peers and sibling for all 3 behaviors. For fast food consumption, the peer resemblance was more than 6-fold higher than the sibling resemblance and the peer resemblance surpassed the sibling resemblance by the age of 9-10years. The similarities with peers for fast food consumption and screen time steadily increased, while the similarities with siblings steadily decreased with increasing age of the children (Pinteraction<0.001). In contrast, the relative importance of peers and siblings on sports club duration did not vary by the age of the children. Longitudinal results showed that children's changes in fast food consumption were more strongly associated with those in their peer group than their sibling, in particular if the age gap between siblings was large.In conclusion, our results support the implementation of multi-setting interventions for improving lifestyle behaviors in children. Our findings might also guide future intervention studies in the choice of timing and setting in which interventions are likely to be most effective. From the ages of 9-10years onwards, family- or home-based interventions targeting children's fast food intake and screen time behavior may become less effective than school- or community-based interventions aimed at peer groups.
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| 10. |
- Bornhorst, C., et al.
(author)
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Early Life Factors and Inter-Country Heterogeneity in BMI Growth Trajectories of European Children: The IDEFICS Study
- 2016
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In: Plos One. - San Francisco : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Starting from birth, this explorative study aimed to investigate between-country differences in body mass index (BMI) trajectories and whether early life factors explain these differences. The sample included 7,644 children from seven European countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden) participating in the multi-centre IDEFICS study. Information on early life factors and in total 53,409 repeated measurements of height and weight from 0 to <12 years of age were collected during the baseline (2007/2008) and follow-up examination (2009/2010) supplemented by records of routine child health visits. Country-specific BMI growth curves were estimated using fractional polynomial mixed effects models. Several covariates focussing on early life factors were added to the models to investigate their role in the between-countries differences. Large between-country differences were observed with Italian children showing significantly higher mean BMI values at all ages >= 3 years compared to the other countries. For instance, at age 11 years mean BMI values in Italian boys and girls were 22.3 [21.9; 22.8; 99% confidence interval] and 22.0 [21.5; 22.4], respectively, compared to a range of 18.4 [18.1; 18.8] to 20.3 [19.8; 20.7] in boys and 18.2 [17.8; 18.6] to 20.3 [19.8; 20.7] in girls in the other countries. After adjustment for early life factors, differences between country-specific BMI curves became smaller. Maternal BMI was the factor being most strongly associated with BMI growth (p<0.01 in all countries) with associations increasing during childhood. Gestational weight gain (GWG) was weakly associated with BMI at birth in all countries. In some countries, positive associations between BMI growth and children not being breastfed, mothers' smoking during pregnancy and low educational level of parents were found. Early life factors seem to explain only some of the inter-country variation in growth. Maternal BMI showed the strongest association with children's BMI growth.
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