Poor maternal nutrition, gestational diabetes, and stunted growth during both prenatal and early postnatal periods often result in childhood adiposity, overweight, and obesity, which are risk factors for detrimental health trajectories and non-communicable diseases. selleck kinase inhibitor A considerable percentage of children, ranging from 10 to 30 percent, between the ages of 5 and 16 in Canada, China, India, and South Africa are categorized as overweight or obese.
Integrated interventions across the life course, initiating before conception and continuing throughout early childhood, offer a novel approach to the prevention of overweight and obesity and the reduction of adiposity based on developmental origins of health and disease principles. The Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (HeLTI) was inaugurated in 2017, stemming from a singular collaboration amongst national funding organizations in Canada, China, India, South Africa, and the WHO. A key objective of HeLTI involves evaluating a four-phase, integrated intervention, beginning before conception and encompassing pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood, designed to decrease childhood adiposity (fat mass index) and overweight/obesity, and to improve early child development, nutrition, and positive behavioral patterns.
Women across several countries, including China (Shanghai), India (Mysore), South Africa (Soweto), and the provinces of Canada, are the focus of an ongoing recruitment drive encompassing roughly 22,000 individuals. A cohort of mothers, anticipated to be 10,000, and their children will be monitored up until the child's fifth birthday.
Across four nations, HeLTI has unified the trial's intervention, metrics, tools, biospecimen gathering, and analytical strategies. HeLTI intends to evaluate whether interventions addressing maternal health behaviors, nutrition, weight, psychosocial support to alleviate stress and prevent mental health issues, optimal infant nutrition, physical activity, and sleep, and the promotion of parenting skills can decrease intergenerational risks of childhood obesity, overweight, and excess adiposity across varied contexts.
To highlight prominent research institutions, we can mention the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Science Foundation of China, the Department of Biotechnology in India, and the South African Medical Research Council.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, alongside the National Science Foundation of China, the Department of Biotechnology in India, and the South African Medical Research Council, together represent a powerful force in scientific inquiry.
Among Chinese children and adolescents, there exists a startlingly low prevalence of ideal cardiovascular health. Our objective was to investigate the impact of a school-based lifestyle program on obesity, specifically to ascertain its effect on ideal cardiovascular health.
Stratified by province and grade level (grades 1-11; ages 7-17 years), schools from China's seven regions were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a control group in a cluster-randomized controlled trial. The randomization was independently verified and performed by a statistician. The nine-month intervention program included promoting healthy eating, encouraging physical activity, and teaching self-monitoring of obesity-related behaviors for the intervention group, while the control group received no such promotion. Ideal cardiovascular health, quantified by at least six ideal cardiovascular health behaviors (non-smoking, BMI, physical activity, and diet), along with factors (total cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting plasma glucose), was the primary outcome measured at both baseline and nine months. Intention-to-treat analysis and multilevel modeling strategies were applied in our research. Peking University's Beijing ethics committee, in China, granted approval for this research (ClinicalTrials.gov). A detailed examination of the NCT02343588 study is necessary.
A study involving 94 schools, including 30,629 students in the intervention group and 26,581 in the control group, was conducted to evaluate any follow-up cardiovascular health measures. At the subsequent evaluation, 220%, representing 1139 participants out of 5186, in the intervention group, and 175%, or 601 participants out of 3437, in the control group, demonstrated ideal cardiovascular health. Ideal cardiovascular health behaviors, specifically three or more, were significantly linked to the intervention (odds ratio 115, 95% CI 102-129). This positive relationship, however, did not extend to other metrics of ideal cardiovascular health, once confounding variables were accounted for. In primary school students (aged 7-12; 119; 105-134), the intervention yielded greater improvements in ideal cardiovascular health behaviors compared to secondary school students (aged 13-17 years) (p<00001), with no discernible difference attributable to sex (p=058). selleck kinase inhibitor The intervention's impact on senior students (16-17 years old) showed a reduction in smoking (123; 110-137) and an improvement in primary school pupils' physical activity levels (114; 100-130), but there was a negative association with ideal total cholesterol levels amongst primary school boys (073; 057-094).
A school-based intervention emphasizing diet and exercise led to an improvement in ideal cardiovascular health behaviors amongst Chinese children and adolescents. A positive influence on cardiovascular health over the entirety of a lifetime might result from early intervention efforts.
The project is supported by both the Special Research Grant for Non-profit Public Service from the Ministry of Health of China (201202010) and the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2021A1515010439).
The research was supported by two grants: the Special Research Grant for Non-profit Public Service of the Ministry of Health of China (201202010) and the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2021A1515010439).
Proof of successful early childhood obesity prevention is limited, primarily originating from direct, face-to-face interventions. However, global face-to-face health programs were substantially reduced in scope as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. A telephone-based intervention's impact on lowering obesity risk in young children was evaluated in this study.
A randomized controlled trial, pragmatic in design and based on a pre-pandemic study protocol, encompassed 662 women with two-year-old children (mean age 2406 months [SD 69]) between March 2019 and October 2021. The original 12-month intervention period was expanded to 24 months. Text messages were integrated with five telephone-based support sessions as part of a 24-month intervention specifically designed for children between the ages of 24-26 months, 28-30 months, 32-34 months, 36-38 months, and 42-44 months. Participants in the intervention group (331 in total) were given staged telephone and SMS support regarding healthy eating, physical activity, and COVID-19. A retention protocol for the control group (n=331) was a four-stage mail-out program containing information that had no relation to the obesity prevention intervention, specifically focusing on matters like toilet training, language development, and sibling relationships. At 12 months and 24 months post-baseline (age 2), we evaluated intervention impacts on BMI (primary outcome), eating habits (secondary outcome), and perceived co-benefits via surveys and qualitative telephone interviews. The Australian Clinical Trial Registry contains a record of the trial, referenced as ACTRN12618001571268.
From a cohort of 662 mothers, 537 (81%) completed the follow-up evaluations at the three-year point, demonstrating substantial participation. Furthermore, 491 (74%) completed the follow-up assessment at the four-year point. No significant difference in mean BMI was observed across the groups, as determined by a multiple imputation analysis. In the intervention group of low-income families (annual household income less than AU$80,000) at age three, the mean BMI was significantly lower (1626 kg/m² [SD 222]) than that of the control group (1684 kg/m²).
There was a statistically significant difference of -0.059 (95% CI -0.115 to -0.003; p=0.0040) between the groups. There was a statistically significant difference in television-mediated eating habits between the intervention and control groups. Children in the intervention group were much less likely to eat while watching television than those in the control group, as reflected by adjusted odds ratios (aOR) of 200 (95% CI 133 to 299) at three years and 250 (163 to 383) at four years. Twenty-eight mothers, interviewed qualitatively, reported that the intervention fostered a heightened awareness, increased confidence, and stimulated motivation to adopt healthy feeding practices, particularly among families from culturally diverse backgrounds (i.e., those speaking a language other than English at home).
The telephone-based intervention, as part of the study, met with favorable reception from the participating mothers. The intervention's impact on the BMI of children from low-income families could be substantial. selleck kinase inhibitor Support via telephone, specifically tailored for low-income and culturally diverse families, may help alleviate existing disparities in childhood obesity rates.
The trial was financed through a combination of grants, namely, the NSW Health Translational Research Grant Scheme 2016, grant number TRGS 200, and a partnership grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (number 1169823).
The trial was supported financially by the NSW Health Translational Research Grant Scheme 2016, grant number TRGS 200, as well as a National Health and Medical Research Council Partnership grant, grant number 1169823.
Nutritional support before and during pregnancy holds potential for encouraging healthy infant weight gain, yet substantial clinical research is absent. Consequently, we investigated the impact of preconception factors and prenatal supplementation on the physical dimensions and growth trajectories of children during their first two years of life.
To ensure a diverse cohort, women were recruited from communities in the UK, Singapore, and New Zealand prior to conception, and then randomly assigned to either the intervention group receiving myo-inositol, probiotics, and additional micronutrients or the control group given standard micronutrient supplements. This assignment was stratified by location and ethnicity.