Synthetic standards for body weight.

Growth charts represent body stature, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) from birth to maturity. Due to secular changes in these parameters, growth charts tend to become outdated, and must be revised from time to time. Recently, we developed alternative strategies that facilitate developing and renewing growth charts, and suggested synthetic standards for body stature. The increasing prevalence of obesity has made it necessary to develop similar techniques also for monitoring body weight and BMI. Two-hundred-and-forty historic and modern growth studies (108 studies of male growth, 132 studies of female growth) were selected from 22 European, 6 American, 3 African, and 6 Asian nations, published between 1831 and 2001. The studies contained annual information on weight and stature, either between birth and 6 years, or between 6 years and maturity, or information on the whole age range between birth and maturity. Since historic studies up to the mid-20th century usually ignore the fact that body weight (in contrast to body stature) is not normally distributed, a group of 92 more recent studies (45 male, 47 female), published between 1943 and 2001, presenting centiles for weight, was chosen for additional analysis. Furthermore, the skewness of body weight distributions, was investigated in original raw data of body weight obtained from five well reputed longitudinal growth studies, performed at Jena, Germany, Lublin, Poland, Paris, France, Prague, Czech Republic, and Zürich, Switzerland. Average body stature and average weight differ markedly between different populations. But within the same population, both parameters are closely interrelated. In males, birth length and weight correlated with r = 0.503, stature and weight correlated with r = 0.873 at the age of 2 years; with r = 0.882 at the age of 6 years; with r = 0.935 at the age of 14 years, and with r = 0.891 at the age of 18 years. Similar results were obtained in females. At birth, length and weight correlated with r = 0.619. Stature and weight correlated with r = 0.863 at the age of 2; with r = 0.912 at the age of 6; with r = 0.935 at the age of 12; and with r = 0.918 at the age of 15 years. Tables of linear regression coefficients for relative stature and weight at all ages enable the reversal of the process of the meta-analysis and allow the generation of synthetic growth references for stature and weight. Synthetic reference charts help in the revision of current growth charts without much additional effort, and may be used for populations for which autochthonous growth standards are not available.

Automatic analysis of longitudinal growth data on the Website willi-will-wachsen.de.

Many disorders of child development can only be treated successfully when they are detected early. Thus, child development should be checked periodically. Usually, a few parameters are sufficient to check whether or not a child is developing normally in terms of growth. By making such checks publicly available on the website: willi-will-wachsen.de the authors hope to provide a tool which helps the automatization of simple check procedures and thereby detect with less effort more children with growth disorders.

Is circulating osteocalcin related to adipokines and overweight/obesity in children and adolescents?

Osteocalcin (OC) has recently been described to be involved in the regulation of glucose and energy metabolism. We aimed to evaluate whether or not OC serum levels were related to parameters of overweight and serum adipokine levels of healthy children and adolescents in dependence on gender and pubertal stage.In a cross sectional study (Leipzig Schoolchildren Project) 497 healthy, caucasian children and adolescents of all pubertal stages were included. We measured anthropometric data height, weight, fat mass, waist-to-hip ratio, pubertal development and performed biochemical analyses of osteocalcin, leptin, adiponectin and resistin serum levels by immunoassay.OC serum levels were associated with pubertal development achieving peak values at Tanner stage 3. There was no significant association of OC serum levels with overweight and obesity as measured by BMI and WHR. In addition, OC demonstrated no significant association with serum levels of leptin and adiponectin but a negative association with resistin in both genders independent of pubertal stages (r= - 0.329, p<0.0001).We conclude that there is no major relationship between OC and metabolism, but we can not exclude minor relations between OC and metabolism. The negative relationship with serum resistin levels might rather point to a link between OC and inflammatory states.

Growth variation, final height and secular trend. Proceedings of the 17th Aschauer Soiree, 7th November 2009.

Growth and body height have always been topics interesting to the public. In particular, the stupendous increase of some 15-19cm in final adult height during the last 150 years in most European countries (the "secular trend"), the concomitant changes in body and head proportions, the tendency towards early onset of sexual maturation, the changes in the age when final height is being reached, and the very recent trend in body mass index, have generated much scientific literature. The marked plasticity of growth in height and weight over time causes problems. Child growth references differ between nations, they tend to quickly become out of date, and raise a number of questions regarding fitting methods, effects caused by selective drop-out, etc. New findings contradict common beliefs about the primary importance of nutritional and health related factors for secular changes in growth. There appears to be a broad age span from mid-childhood to early adolescence that is characterised by a peculiar insusceptibility. Environmental factors that are known to influence growth during this age span appear to have only little or no impact on final height. Major re-arrangements in height occur at an age when puberty has almost been completed and final height has almost been reached, implying that factors, which drive the secular trend in height, are limited to early childhood and late adolescence.