Early life programming of attention capacity in adolescents: The HELENA studyShow others and affiliations
Number of Authors: 112018 (English)In: Maternal and Child Nutrition, ISSN 1740-8695, E-ISSN 1740-8709, Vol. 14, no 1, article id e12451Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The study aims to examine the individual and combined association of early life factors (birth weight, birth length, and any and exclusive breastfeeding) with attention capacity in adolescents. The study included 421 European adolescents (243 girls), aged 12.5-17.5 years, who participated in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence Study. Body weight and length at birth of adolescents were collected from parental records. The duration of any and exclusive breastfeeding were self-reported. The d2 Test of Attention was administered to assess attention capacity. The main results showed that birth weight, birth length, breastfeeding, and exclusive breastfeeding were related to attention capacity in boys (β ranging from 0.144 to 0.196; all p < .05) after adjustment for age, centre, gestational age, maternal education, family affluence scale, and body mass index. Among boys, differences in attention capacity were found according to tertiles of birth weight and birth length (p < .05), as well as borderline significant differences across groups of any and exclusive breastfeeding (p = 0.055 and p = 0.108, respectively) after adjusting for potential confounders. In addition, boys with 3 early life risk factors (low birth weight, low birth length, and <3 months of breastfeeding) had significantly lower scores in attention capacity compared with boys with 0 risk factors (percentile score - 15.88; p = 0.009). In conclusion, early life factors, both separately and combined, may influence attention capacity in male European adolescents. Importantly, the combination of the 3 early life risk factors, low birth weight, low birth length, and <3 months of breastfeeding, even in normal ranges, may provide the highest reduction in attention capacity.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 14, no 1, article id e12451
Keywords [en]
adolescent, attention capacity, birth length, birth weight, breastfeeding, early life factors
National Category
Health Sciences
Research subject
Research Profiles 2009-2020, Health and Welfare
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-24745DOI: 10.1111/mcn.12451ISI: 000418336700012PubMedID: 28401662Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85018565381OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-24745DiVA, id: diva2:1089614
2017-04-202017-04-202025-10-09Bibliographically approved