Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect people's health and wellbeing not only at the time the ACE is experienced, but also later in life. The majority of studies on ACEs are carried out in high-income countries and little is known about its prevalence in low and middle-income countries. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of ACEs, associations between ACEs and sociodemographic factors, and the interrelationship between types of ACEs in adolescents of a Brazilian birth cohort. Data from 3,951 adolescents (78.4% of the original cohort) from the 1993 Pelotas Cohort were analyzed. Seven types of ACEs were assessed in those up to 18 years old: physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, domestic violence, parental separation and parental death. The most common ACE was parental separation (42%), followed by emotional neglect (19.7%) and domestic violence (10.3%). Approximately 85% of the adolescents experienced at least one ACE, and females reported a higher number of adversities. Several socioeconomic, demographic and family-related characteristics were associated with the occurrence of ACEs, e.g. non-white skin color, low family income, low maternal schooling, absence of mother's partner, maternal smoking, and poor maternal mental health. A strong interrelationship was observed among the ACEs, indicating clustering of risk. These aspects should be considered by health and social care professionals in the prevention and identification of childhood adversities.

The aim of this study was to identify the factors associated with low diet quality in old-

The results suggest a relationship between sexual intercourse (≤ 14 years) and some health-risk behaviors. The non-use of condoms and contraceptives may make them vulnerable to experiencing unwanted situations. Education and sociocultural strategies for health should be implemented from the beginning of adolescence.

Miscarriage is a common, complex trait affecting ~15% of clinically confirmed pregnancies. Here we present the results of large-scale genetic association analyses with 69,054 cases from five different ancestries for sporadic miscarriage, 750 cases of European ancestry for multiple (≥3) consecutive miscarriage, and up to 359,469 female controls. We identify one genome-wide significant association (rs146350366, minor allele frequency (MAF) 1.2%, P = 3.2 × 10−8, odds ratio (OR) = 1.4) for sporadic miscarriage in our European ancestry meta-analysis and three genome-wide significant associations for multiple consecutive miscarriage (rs7859844, MAF = 6.4%, P = 1.3 × 10−8, OR = 1.7; rs143445068, MAF = 0.8%, P = 5.2 × 10−9, OR = 3.4; rs183453668, MAF = 0.5%, P = 2.8 × 10−8, OR = 3.8). We further investigate the genetic architecture of miscarriage with biobank-scale Mendelian randomization, heritability, and genetic correlation analyses. Our results show that miscarriage etiopathogenesis is partly driven by genetic variation potentially related to placental biology, and illustrate the utility of large-scale biobank data for understanding this pregnancy complication.

Environmental strategies of affect regulation refer to the use of natural and urban socio-physical settings in the service of regulation. We investigated the perceived use and efficacy of environmental strategies for regulation of general affect and sadness, considering them in relation to other affect regulation strategies and to subjective well-being. Participants from Australia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, India, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden (N = 507) evaluated the frequency of use and perceived efficacy of affect regulation strategies using a modified version of the Measure of Affect Regulation Styles (MARS). The internet survey also included the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), emotional well-being items from the RAND 36-Item Health Survey, and a single-item measure of perceived general health. Environmental regulation formed a separate factor of affect regulation in the exploratory structural equation models (ESEM). Although no relations of environmental strategies with emotional well-being were found, both the perceived frequency of use and efficacy of environmental strategies were positively related to perceived health. Moreover, the perceived efficacy of environmental strategies was positively related to life satisfaction in regulating sadness. The results encourage more explicit treatment of environmental strategies in research on affect regulation.

ObjectivesTo assess and compare associations between childhood maltreatment and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in men and women in the UK. In secondary analyses, we also explored possible age differences and associations with early onset CVD (<50 years).MethodsWe included 157 311 participants from the UK Biobank who had information on physical, sexual or emotional abuse, emotional or physical neglect. CVD outcomes were defined as any CVD, hypertensive disease, ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and cerebrovascular disease. These were extracted from self-report, blood pressure measurements, hospital register and death register. The associations between maltreatment and CVD were assessed using Poisson regression with robust variance to estimate risk ratios, stratified by sex and adjusted for socioeconomic and demographic factors.ResultsAll types of maltreatment were associated with increased risk of CVD and IHD in both sexes. Additionally, in women all types of maltreatment were associated with higher risk of hypertensive disease, and all, except emotional neglect, were associated with cerebrovascular disease. In men, all but sexual abuse, were associated with higher risk of hypertensive disease, and all, except physical and sexual abuse, were associated with cerebrovascular disease. Associations were generally stronger in women, and individuals who were younger at baseline had stronger associations of childhood maltreatment with any CVD and IHD, but age differences were less evident when only early onset CVD was considered.ConclusionsChildhood maltreatment was consistently associated with CVD and stronger associations were generally observed in women and seemed to be stronger for early onset CVD.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adiposity in adolescents from two cohorts in different socioeconomic contexts.MethodsData from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, United Kingdom) and the 1993 Pelotas Cohort (Brazil) were used. Six ACEs were assessed in both cohorts up to age 15. At 15 years, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) were measured, and at 18 years, BMI, fat mass index, and android fat percentage were assessed.ResultsFew associations were observed between ACEs and adiposity at 15 years, and they were not consistent across cohorts. For adiposity at age 15 in ALSPAC, physical abuse had a positive association with WC, and domestic violence had a positive association with both WC and BMI. A dose‐response relationship between the ACE score and both WC and BMI at 15 years was observed in ALSPAC. In the 1993 Pelotas Cohort, the associations found in crude analysis were no longer evident after adjustment.ConclusionsThis study found some evidence of an association between an ACE score and adiposity in adolescence in a United Kingdom cohort but no evidence of association in a Brazilian cohort. Residual confounding or context‐specific relationships could explain the different pattern of associations.

Background Males experience higher rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) than females, but the circulating traits underpinning this difference are poorly understood. We examined sex differences in systemic metabolites measured at four life stages, spanning childhood to middle adulthood. Methods Data were from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (7727 offspring, 49% male; and 6500 parents, 29% male). Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy from a targeted metabolomics platform was performed on EDTA-plasma or serum samples to quantify 229 systemic metabolites (including lipoprotein-subclass-specific lipids, pre-glycaemic factors, and inflammatory glycoprotein acetyls). Metabolites were measured in the same offspring once in childhood (mean age 8 years), twice in adolescence (16 years and 18 years) and once in early adulthood (25 years), and in their parents once in middle adulthood (50 years). Linear regression models estimated differences in metabolites for males versus females on each occasion (serial cross-sectional associations). Results At 8 years, total lipids in very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) were lower in males; levels were higher in males at 16 years and higher still by 18 years and 50 years (among parents) for medium-or-larger subclasses. Larger sex differences at older ages were most pronounced for VLDL triglycerides—males had 0.19 standard deviations (SD) (95% CI = 0.12, 0.26) higher at 18 years, 0.50 SD (95% CI = 0.42, 0.57) higher at 25 years, and 0.62 SD (95% CI = 0.55, 0.68) higher at 50 years. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, apolipoprotein-B, and glycoprotein acetyls were generally lower in males across ages. The direction and magnitude of effects were largely unchanged when adjusting for body mass index measured at the time of metabolite assessment on each occasion. Conclusions Our results suggest that males begin to have higher VLDL triglyceride levels in adolescence, with larger sex differences at older ages. Sex differences in other CHD-relevant metabolites, including LDL cholesterol, show the opposite pattern with age, with higher levels among females. Such life course trends may inform causal analyses with clinical endpoints in specifying traits which underpin higher age-adjusted CHD rates commonly seen among males.