Implications of leg length for metabolic health and fitness.

Autor: Shirley MK; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Arthurs OJ; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Seunarine KK; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Cole TJ; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Eaton S; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Williams JE; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Clark CA; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK., Wells JCK; UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Evolution, medicine, and public health [Evol Med Public Health] 2022 Jul 21; Vol. 10 (1), pp. 316-324. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jul 21 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1093/emph/eoac023
Abstrakt: Background and Objectives: Several studies have linked longer legs with favorable adult metabolic health outcomes and greater offspring birth weight. A recent Mendelian randomization study suggested a causal link between height and cardiometabolic risk; however, the underlying reasons remain poorly understood.
Methodology: Using a cross-sectional design, we tested in a convenience sample of 70 healthy young women whether birth weight and tibia length as markers of early-life conditions associated more strongly with metabolically beneficial traits like organ size and skeletal muscle mass (SMM) than a statistically derived height-residual variable indexing later, more canalized growth.
Results: Consistent with the 'developmental origins of health and disease' hypothesis, we found relatively strong associations of tibia length-but not birth weight-with adult organ size, brain size, SMM and resting energy expenditure measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and indirect calorimetry, respectively.
Conclusions and Implications: Building on prior work, these results suggest that leg length is a sensitive marker of traits directly impacting metabolic and reproductive health. Alongside findings in the same sample relating tibia length and height-residual to MRI-measured pelvic dimensions, we suggest there may exist a degree of coordination in the development of long bone, lean mass and pelvic traits, possibly centered on early, pre-pubertal growth periods. Such phenotypic coordination has important implications for fitness, serving to benefit both adult health and the health of offspring in subsequent generations.
(© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.)
Databáze: MEDLINE