The Uppsala studies on developmental origins of health and disease

Evolution and Human Behavior

Koupil

2010

Goodman, A; Koupil, I (2010) The effect of school performance upon marriage and long-term reproductive success in 10,000 Swedish males and females born 1915-1929. Evolution and human behavior , 31 (6 AbstractHumans are an exceptionally intelligent species, and the selective pressures which may have shaped these advanced cognitive powers are therefore of interest. This study investigates the fitness consequences of pre-reproductive school performance in a Swedish population-based cohort of 5244 males and 4863 females born [1915][1916][1917][1918][1919][1920][1921][1922][1923][1924][1925][1926][1927][1928][1929]. School performance was measured at around age 10 using three variables: mean schoolmarks; being promoted/held back in school; and recognised learning difficulties. Our primary outcomes were probability of ever marrying, total number of children and total number of grandchildren. In males (but not females), poorer school performance predicted fewer children and grandchildren. This was primarily mediated via probability of marriage; mortality and fertility within marriage were not important mediating pathways. The effect of school performance upon marriage in males was independent of early-life social and biological characteristics, including birthweight for gestational age, preterm birth, family composition and family socio-economic position. The effect of school performance upon the probability of marriage in males was, however, largely mediated by adult socioeconomic position. This suggests that in general sexual selection for cognitive abilities per se did not play a major role in either males or females in this cohort. Adult socio-economic position did not, however, fully explain the marriage disadvantage in males or (at marginal significance) females with particularly poor school performance. We conclude that school performance can affect long-term reproductive success. In this population, however, the effect is confined to males and is largely mediated by the increased probability of marriage which comes with their greater socio-economic success.

Section: Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of school performance upon marriage and long-term reproductive success in 10,000 Swedish males and females born 1915–1929

Evolution and Human Behavior

Koupil

2010

“…when the UBCoS cohort was aged 3-17 years) and to survive to at least 1961 36 . The resulting UBCoS multigenerational data base (Koupil 37 and http://www.chess.su.se/ubcosmg/) contains information about families spanning up to five generations.…”

Section: Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the year when Swedish citizens were assigned personal identification numbers) (Koupil 2007). To be included in the Multigenerational registry, these descendants had to be born in 1932 or later (i.e.…”

Section: Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and biological determinants of reproductive success in Swedish males and females born 1915–1929

Evolution and Human Behavior

Koupil

2009

Studying biological and social determinants of mortality and fertility provides insight into selective pressures in a population and the possibility of trade-offs between short-and long-term reproductive success. Limited data is available from post-demographic transition populations. We studied determinants of reproductive success using multi-generational data from a large, population-based cohort of 13 666 individuals born in Sweden between 1915 and 1929. We studied the effects of birthweight for gestational age, preterm birth, birth multiplicity, birth order, mother's age, mother's marital status and family socio-economic position upon reproductive success, measured as total number of children and grandchildren. We further tested the hypothesis that number of grandchildren would peak at intermediate family size, as predicted by some life history explanations for fertility limitation.Reproductive success was associated with both social and biological characteristics at birth. In both sexes, a higher birthweight for gestational age, a term birth and a younger mother were independently associated with a greater number of descendants. A married mother and higher family socio-economic position were also associated a greater number of descendants in males (but not females), while in females (but not males) higher birth order was associated with higher reproductive success. These effects were mediated by sex-specific effects upon the probability of marriage. Marriage was also affected by other early life characteristics including birthweight, indicating how 'biological' characteristics may operate via social pathways.Number of grandchildren increased with increasing number of children in both sexes, providing no evidence for a trade-off between quantity of offspring and their subsequent reproductive 'quality'.

“…The Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study (UBCoS Multigen) has been described previously (3)(4)(5). Briefly, the cohort comprises all live births between 1915 and 1929 in the Uppsala Academic Hospital, Sweden.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal Pelvic Size Not Predictive of Daughter's Breast Cancer or Ovarian Cancer in a Large Swedish Cohort

Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &Amp; Prevention

Mishra²,

dos‐Santos‐Silva³

et al. 2009

Recent studies from Finland reported that maternal pelvic size predicted daughters' breast and ovarian cancer, possibly because maternal pelvic size is a marker for in utero hormone exposure. We sought to replicate this association in 3,845 women born between 1915 and 1929 in Uppsala, Sweden, and followed from 1960 to 2002. Archived obstetric records provided the standard measures of maternal pelvic size (intercristal distance, interspinous distance, the intercristal-interspinous difference, and the external conjugate distance). The Swedish Cancer Registry ascertained cancer incidence, with 273 cohort members developing primary breast cancer, and 52 developing primary ovarian cancer during the follow-up period. There was no evidence (P > 0.1) of an association between any measure of maternal pelvic size and incidence of either breast or ovarian cancer. This was true both before and after adjustment for various characteristics of the women and their mothers, and in analyses stratified by age at diagnosis (<50 versus ≥50 years of age, as a proxy for premenopausal and postmenopausal ages). There was also no evidence of an association in subgroup analyses restricted specifically to those groups in which the Finnish data found the greatest effect. Our study is of comparable size to the Finnish studies and was highly powered (>99%) to detect effects of the magnitude they reported. Our nonreplication therefore casts doubt on the link between maternal pelvic size and risk of breast and ovarian cancer in the offspring. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(8):2333-5)