American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
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To analyze whether living conditions, experienced by mothers and adult daughters during their childhood, are associated with age at menarche (AAM) in daughters. ⋯ Our results suggest that better living conditions experienced by the mothers and daughters during their childhood may lower mean AAM in daughters in the context of populations that show important intergenerational changes in their social and economic conditions.
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Refugee camps are often assumed to negatively impact local host communities through resource competition and conflict. We ask instead whether economic resources and trade networks associated with refugees have benefits for host community health and nutrition. To address this question we assess the impacts of Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya, comparing anthropometric indicators of nutritional status between Turkana communities in the region. ⋯ Kakuma Refugee Camp is associated with better host community energetic status indicators, compared to other relevant, regional sites varying in development and resources. Based on global nutritional standards, observed differences likely represent meaningful disparities in overall health. We suggest that access to cereals via refugee trade networks and employment might mediate this relationship. However, perceptions of refugees as illegitimate interlopers maintain a high psychological burden.
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Obesity classification using body mass index (BMI) may miss subjects with elevated body fat percentage (BF%) and related metabolic risk factors. We aimed to evaluate whether BF% calculated by equations could provide more information about metabolic risks, in addition to BMI classification, in a cross-sectional rural Chinese population. ⋯ Our study suggested that high BF% based on equations may indicate adverse metabolic profiles among rural Chinese adults with a normal BMI.
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To develop a fully-automated algorithm to process axial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slices for quantifying abdominal visceral, subcutaneous and total adipose tissues, i.e., VAT, SAT, and TAT, without human intervention or prior knowledge. ⋯ The fully-automated algorithm presented in the paper provides an accurate and reliable assessment of abdominal fat without human intervention. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:757-766, 2016. © 2016Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Specific bioelectrical impedance vector analysis (spBIVA) is a recently proposed technique for the analysis of body composition. The aim of this study was to apply spBIVA to a sample of Italian and Spanish young adults and to define the new bioelectrical references for this Western Mediterranean population. ⋯ These population and age-related differences indicate the need for new specific tolerance ellipses that can be used as references for assessing body composition in young adults from Western Mediterranean populations.