Childhood growth affects mid-life physical ability

People who hit key developmental milestones on time in early childhood may have a lower risk of becoming disabled in later life, a new study suggests.

Dr. Diana Kuh of the Royal Free and University College London Medical School and associates had previously shown that middle-age subjects who were healthier, wealthier and more active than their peers also fared better on two tests of physical performance known to predict the risk of becoming frail and disabled. The tests, one of a person’s ability to rise from sitting to a standing position and the other of how well a person can balance while standing, are considered accurate indications of overall physical function, as well as “underlying biologic aging processes,” Kuh and her team note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

To investigate whether early growth and development might predict a person’s future physical function, the researchers looked at childhood height and weight, age at first standing and walking, intellectual ability and coordination in 1374 men and 1410 women in the UK, all of whom were 53 years old.

They found that the speed of weight gain up to age 7 years was linked to standing balance and chair rising among men. For both sexes, those who walked and stood by 12 months of age fared better on the physical function tests in midlife, as did those who scored higher on tests of mental function at age 8 and physical coordination at age 15.

Physical and mental development in early life are tightly linked to physical and cognitive aging, Kuh and her team note. How well people fared on tests of their early development, the researchers suggest, could be a marker for the establishment of brain circuitry involved in higher functions later in life.

The findings suggest, the authors conclude, that efforts to prevent frailty and disability as people age may need to begin much earlier in life.

The study by Kuh and colleagues provides new and important information on development and aging, Dr. Constance Wang of the University of California at Berkeley notes in an accompanying editorial. The findings also raise many questions, she adds, including which markers of early development will be most valuable, how to look at the contribution of socioeconomic factors to aging and development, and how to study development and aging as a cumulative process.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, July 15, 2006.

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