Objectives To study the relationship between physical performance and sense of autonomy in outdoor activities with life‐space mobility—the spatial area a person purposefully moves through in daily life—in community‐dwelling older people. Design Cross‐sectional analyses of baseline data of the Life‐Space Mobility in Old Age cohort study. Setting Structured interviews in participants' homes. Participants Community‐dwelling people aged 75 to 90 (N = 848). Measurements Sense of autonomy outdoors (Impact on Participation and Autonomy questionnaire subscale), life‐space mobility (Life‐Space Assessment; University of Alabama, Birmingham Study of Aging), and Short Physical Performance Battery. Results The median score for life‐space mobility was 64.0. In linear regression models, poorer physical performance and more‐limited sense of autonomy were independently associated with more restrictions in life‐space mobility, explaining approximately one‐third of the variation in life‐space mobility. Physical performance also had an indirect effect on life‐space mobility through sense of autonomy outdoors. Subgroup analyses of 5‐year age groups and sex revealed that the associations were somewhat stronger in women and the oldest age group. Conclusion Physical performance and sense of autonomy in outdoor activities explained a substantial portion of the variation in life‐space mobility in healthy older people, indicating that physical and psychosocial factors play a role in maintaining mobility in old age.

Early life is an important window of opportunity to improve health across the full lifecycle. An accumulating body of evidence suggests that exposure to adverse stressors during early life leads to developmental adaptations, which subsequently affect disease risk in later life. Also, geographical, socioeconomic , and ethnic differences are related to health inequalities from early life onwards. To address these important public health challenges, many European pregnancy and childhood cohorts have been established over the last 30 years. The enormous wealth of data of these cohorts has led to important new biological insights and important impact for health from early life onwards. The impact of these cohorts and their data could be further increased by combining data from different cohorts. Combining data will lead to the possibility of identifying smaller effect estimates, and the opportunity to better identify risk groups and risk factors leading to disease across the lifecycle across countries. Also, it enables research on better causal understanding and modelling of life course health trajectories. The EU Child Cohort Network, established by the Horizon2020-funded LifeCycle Project, brings together nineteen pregnancy and childhood cohorts, together including more than 250,000 children and their parents. A large set of variables has been harmonised and standardized across these cohorts. The harmonized data are kept within each institution and can be accessed by external researchers through a shared federated data analysis platform using the R-based platform DataSHIELD, which takes relevant national and international data regulations into account. The EU Child Cohort Network has an open character. All protocols for data harmonization and setting up the data analysis platform are available online. The EU Child Cohort Network creates great opportunities for researchers to use data from different cohorts, during and beyond the LifeCycle Project duration. It also provides a novel model for collaborative research in large research infrastructures with individual-level data. The LifeCycle Project will translate results from research using the EU Child Cohort Network into recommendations for targeted prevention strategies to improve health trajectories for current and future generations by optimizing their earliest phases of life.

SUMMARYThis cross-sectional study aimed to investigate whether body fat distribution, physical activity levels and dietary intakes are associated with insomnia and/or obstructive sleep apnea among overweight middleaged men. Participants were 211 Finnish men aged 30-65 years. Among the 163 overweight or obese participants, 40 had insomnia only, 23 had obstructive sleep apnea only, 24 had comorbid insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea and 76 were without sleep disorder. The remaining 48 participants had normal weight without sleep disorder. Fat mass, levels of physical activity and diet were assessed by dual-energy X-ray densitometry, physical activity questionnaire and 3-day food diary, respectively. Among the overweight participants, we found that: (i) groups with sleep disorders had higher fat mass in trunk and android regions than the group without sleep disorder (P = 0.048-0.004); (ii) the insomnia-only group showed a lower level of leisure-time physical activity (436.9 versus 986.5 MET min week À1 , P = 0.009) and higher intake of saturated fatty acids (14.8 versus 12.7 E%, P = 0.011) than the group without sleep disorder; and (iii) the comorbid group had a lower level of leisure-time physical activity (344.4 versus 986.5 MET min week À1 , P = 0.007) and lower folate intake (118.9 versus 152.1 lg, P = 0.002) than the group without sleep disorder, which were independent of body mass index. The results suggest that central obesity is associated with insomnia and/or obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, low levels of leisure-time physical activity and poor dietary intakes are related to insomnia or comorbid insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea among overweight men. IN TROD UCTI ONSleep disorders such as insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have become a significant health issue worldwide. The prevalence of insomnia has been estimated as 6-7% among the US and European populations (Ohayon, 2002;Wittchen et al., 2011), while more than 30% of the population may suffer at least one symptom related to insomnia (Ohayon, 2002). In Finland, the prevalence of diagnosed insomnia is 11.7%, which is 1.5-2 times higher than other European countries (Ohayon and Partinen, 2002). OSA is another sleep disorder with increasing prevalence, which affects 3-17% American adults in different age and gender groups, and is most observed commonly among men from middle to old age (Peppard et al., 2013). The prevalence of OSA is approximately 8% among Finnish population (Kronholm et al., 2009). Insomnia and OSA also often exist as comorbidity (Luyster et al., 2010).An increasing number of studies have shown the association between obesity and sleep disorders. One study Sleep and body fat suggests that obese individuals are 50% more likely to suffer insomnia than participants of normal weight, thus obesity is regarded as a risk factor for insomnia (Singareddy et al., 2012). The association between obesity and OSA is more widely recognized (Punjabi, 2008). More than two-thirds of individuals with OSA are obese (Punjabi, 2008;Vgontzas et...

STRUCTURED ABSTRACT:BACKGROUND: Poor hearing is common in older adults and it may have negative consequences which extend beyond communication. OBJECTIVES:To explore the associations of self-reported hearing problems with physical performance and self-reported difficulties in mobility and activities of daily living (ADL) in community-dwelling older adults. DESIGN:Cross-sectional cohort study SETTING: Community PARTICIPANTS: 848 men and women aged 75-90 years MEASUREMENTS:Structured face-to-face interviews to assess perceived hearing problems in the presence of noise, mobility difficulties (moving indoors, stair-climbing, 0.5 km walk and 2 km walk) and difficulties in ADLs and instrumental ADLs. The Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) test was administered. Age, years of education, cognitive functioning, and self-reported cardiac, circulatory, and locomotor diseases were used as covariates. RESULTS:Compared to persons who reported good hearing, persons who reported major hearing problems had a lower SPPB total score indicating poorer performance (mean 9.8 vs.10.9, p=0.009) and more difficulties in ADLs (mean 1.8 vs. 1.4, p=0.002) and IADLs (mean 4.6 vs. 3.4, p=0.002) after controlling for covariates. They also had higher odds for more difficulty in stair-climbing (OR 2.8, p<0.001) and walking 2 km (OR 2.1, p=0.003) and tended to have more difficulty in walking 0.5 km (OR 1.7, p=0.050) but not in moving indoors (p=0.177). Persons who reported only some hearing problems did not differ from those who reported good hearing in any of the variables studied. CONCLUSION:Perceived major hearing problems among older adults may contribute to 4 poorer lower limb performance, and difficulties in mobility and ADL. Longitudinal studies are needed in order to disentangle whether poor hearing is a risk factor for decline in physical performance. Given the growing prevalence of hearing problems with increasing age, it is vitally important to study the correlates of hearing difficulties in old adults. The primary purpose of the present study was to explore the associations between self-reported hearing problems and physical performance in community-dwelling older adults. We also studied the association of self-reported hearing problems with perceived mobility difficulties and difficulties in activities of daily living.7 METHODS Design and sampleThe analyses made use of cross-sectional data gathered for the Life-Space Mobility in Old Age (LISPE) project, which is a study of community-dwelling older adults. The project has been described in detail elsewhere. 20 Briefly, a sample of 2 550 older persons between 75and 90 years of age and living in the municipalities of Muurame and Jyväskylä, both located in Central Finland, was drawn from the population register. A telephone interview was used to screen eligible participants based on the inclusion criteria, which were: living independently, residing in the recruitment area, being able to communicate, and willingness to participate in the study. The final data set comprised 848 ind...

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Breastfeeding is beneficial to maternal bone strength in the long run.

Osteocalcin, glucose, and adipokines change with age but in a noncommensurate manner. We infer that the association between osteocalcin and glucose metabolism is minor and age specific in nondiabetic women. Leptin, however, strongly correlated with insulin resistance independently of fat masses, suggesting that obesity, as a metabolic disorder risk factor, affects glucose metabolism, partly through the role of leptin.

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