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Background: Evidence on the adiposity-mental health associations is mixed, with studies finding positive, negative or no associations, and less is known about how these associations may vary by age., Objective: To examine the association of adiposity -body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and percentage body fat (BF%)- with mental health functioning across the adult lifespan., Methods: Data from 11,257 participants (aged 18+) of Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (waves 2 and 3, 5/2010-7/2013) were employed. Regressions of mental health functioning, assessed by the Mental Component Summary (MCS-12) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), on adiposity measures (continuous or dichotomous indicators) were estimated adjusted for covariates. Polynomial age-adiposity interactions were estimated., Results: Higher adiposity was associated with poorer mental health functioning. This emerged in the 30s, increased up to mid-40s (all central adiposity and obesity-BF% measures) or early 50s (all BMI measures) and then decreased with age. Underlying physical health generally accounted for these associations except for central adiposity, where associations remained statistically significant from the mid-30s to 50s. Cardiovascular, followed by arthritis and endocrine, conditions played the greatest role in attenuating the associations under investigation., Conclusions: We found strong age-specific patterns in the adiposity-mental health functioning association that varied across adiposity measures. Underlying physical health had the dominant role in attenuating these associations. Policy makers and health professionals should target increased adiposity, mainly central adiposity, as it is a risk factor for poor mental health functioning in those aged between mid-30s to 50 years.

Introduction: Epidemiological studies have shown that weaker grip strength in later life is associated with disability, morbidity, and mortality. Grip strength is a key component of the sarcopenia and frailty phenotypes and yet it is unclear how individual measurements should be interpreted. Our objective was to produce cross-sectional centile values for grip strength across the life course. A secondary objective was to examine the impact of different aspects of measurement protocol., Methods: We combined 60,803 observations from 49,964 participants (26,687 female) of 12 general population studies in Great Britain. We produced centile curves for ages 4 to 90 and investigated the prevalence of weak grip, defined as strength at least 2.5 SDs below the gender-specific peak mean. We carried out a series of sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of dynamometer type and measurement position (seated or standing)., Results: Our results suggested three overall periods: an increase to peak in early adult life, maintenance through to midlife, and decline from midlife onwards. Males were on average stronger than females from adolescence onwards: males' peak median grip was 51 kg between ages 29 and 39, compared to 31 kg in females between ages 26 and 42. Weak grip strength, defined as strength at least 2.5 SDs below the gender-specific peak mean, increased sharply with age, reaching a prevalence of 23% in males and 27% in females by age 80. Sensitivity analyses suggested our findings were robust to differences in dynamometer type and measurement position., Conclusion: This is the first study to provide normative data for grip strength across the life course. These centile values have the potential to inform the clinical assessment of grip strength which is recognised as an important part of the identification of people with sarcopenia and frailty.

Introduction: Nordic countries do not have the smallest health inequalities despite egalitarian social policies. A possible explanation for this is that drivers of class differences in health such as financial strain and labour force status remain socially patterned in Nordic countries., Methods: Our analyses used data for working age (25-59) men (n = 48,249) and women (n = 52,654) for 20 countries from five rounds (2002-2010) of the European Social Survey. The outcome was self-rated health in 5 categories. Stratified by gender we used fixed effects linear regression models and marginal standardisation to instigate how countries varied in the degree to which class inequalities were attenuated by financial strain and labour force status., Results and Discussion: Before adjustment, Nordic countries had large inequalities in self-rated health relative to other European countries. For example the regression coefficient for the difference in health between working class and professional men living in Norway was 0.34 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.42), while the comparable figure for Spain was 0.15 (95% CI 0.08 to 0.22). Adjusting for financial strain and labour force status led to attenuation of health inequalities in all countries. However, unlike some countries such as Spain, where after adjustment the regression coefficient for working class men was only 0.02 (95% CI -0.05 to 0.10), health inequalities persisted after adjustment for Nordic countries. For Norway the adjusted coefficient was 0.17 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.25). Results for women and men were similar. However, in comparison to men, class inequalities tended to be stronger for women and more persistent after adjustment., Conclusions: Adjusting for financial security and labour force status attenuates a high proportion of health inequalities in some counties, particularly Southern European countries, but attenuation in Nordic countries was modest and did not improve their relative position.

Purpose: Mismatches between pre- and post-natal environments have implications for disease in adulthood. However, less is known about how this mismatch can affect physiological systems more generally, especially at younger ages. We hypothesised that mismatches between pre- and post-natal environments, as measured by the measures of birthweight and adult leg length, would be associated with poorer biomarker levels across five key physiological systems in young adults., Methods: Data were collected from 923, 36 year-old respondents from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study. The biomarkers were: systolic blood pressure (sBP); forced expiratory volume (FEV1); glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c); glomerular filtration rate (eGFR); and gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT). These biomarkers were regressed against pre-natal conditions (birthweight), post-natal conditions (leg length) and the interaction between pre- and post-natal measures. Sex, childhood socioeconomic position and adult lifestyle characteristics were adjusted for as potential effect modifiers and confounders, respectively., Results: There were no associations between birthweight and leg length and sBP, FEV1, HbA1c, or GGT. Higher birthweight and longer leg length were associated with better kidney function (eGFR). However, there was no evidence for mismatches between birthweight and leg length to be associated with worse sBP, FEV1, HbA1c, eGFR or GGT levels (P>0.05)., Conclusions: Our hypothesis that early signs of physiological damage would be present in young adults given mismatches in childhood environments, as measured by growth markers, was not proven. This lack of association could be because age 36 is too young to identify significant trends for future health, or the associations simply not being present.

There is believed to be a 'beauty premium' in key life outcomes: it is thought that people perceived to be more physically attractive have better educational outcomes, higher-status jobs, higher wages, and are more likely to marry. Evidence for these beliefs, however, is generally based on photographs in hypothetical experiments or studies of very specific population subgroups (such as college students). The extent to which physical attractiveness might have a lasting effect on such outcomes in 'real life' situations across the whole population is less well known. Using longitudinal data from a general population cohort of people in the West of Scotland, this paper investigated the association between physical attractiveness at age 15 and key socioeconomic outcomes approximately 20 years later. People assessed as more physically attractive at age 15 had higher socioeconomic positions at age 36- in terms of their employment status, housing tenure and income - and they were more likely to be married; even after adjusting for parental socioeconomic background, their own intelligence, health and self esteem, education and other adult socioeconomic outcomes. For education the association was significant for women but not for men. Understanding why attractiveness is strongly associated with long-term socioeconomic outcomes, after such extensive confounders have been considered, is important.

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with an increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality, but it is not known if the same is true for telomere length, a marker often used to assess biological ageing. The West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study was used to investigate this and consists of three cohorts aged approximately 35 (N = 775), 55 (N = 866) and 75 years (N = 544) at the time of telomere length measurement. Four sets of measurements of SES were investigated: those collected contemporaneously with telomere length assessment, educational markers, SES in childhood and SES over the preceding twenty years. We found mixed evidence for an association between SES and telomere length. In 35-year-olds, many of the education and childhood SES measures were associated with telomere length, i.e. those in poorer circumstances had shorter telomeres, as was intergenerational social mobility, but not accumulated disadvantage. A crude estimate showed that, at the same chronological age, social renters, for example, were nine years (biologically) older than home owners. No consistent associations were apparent in those aged 55 or 75. There is evidence of an association between SES and telomere length, but only in younger adults and most strongly using education and childhood SES measures. These results may reflect that childhood is a sensitive period for telomere attrition. The cohort differences are possibly the result of survival bias suppressing the SES-telomere association; cohort effects with regard different experiences of SES; or telomere possibly being a less effective marker of biological ageing at older ages.

Background: The search for biomarkers of aging (BoAs) has been largely unsuccessful to-date and there is widespread skepticism about the prospects of finding any that satisfy the criteria developed by the American Federation of Aging Research. This may be because the criteria are too strict or because a composite measure might be more appropriate. Telomere length has attracted a great deal of attention as a candidate BoA. We investigate whether it meets the criteria to be considered as a single biomarker of aging, and whether it makes a useful contribution to a composite measure., Methodology/principal Findings: Using data from a large population based study, we show that telomere length is associated with age, with several measures of physical and cognitive functioning that are related to normal aging, and with three measures of overall health. In the majority of cases, telomere length adds predictive power to that of age, although it was not nearly as good a predictor overall. We used principal components analysis to form two composites from the measures of functioning, one including telomere length and the other not including it. These composite BoAs were better predictors of the health outcomes than chronological age. There was little difference between the two composites., Conclusions: Telomere length does not satisfy the strict criteria for a BoA, but does add predictive power to that of chronological age. Equivocal results from previous studies might be due to lack of power or the choice of measures examined together with a focus on single biomarkers. Composite biomarkers of aging have the potential to outperform age and should be considered for future research in this area.

Background: The adverse effects of advancing maternal age on offspring's health and development are well understood. Much less is known about the impact of paternal age., Methods: We explored paternal age-offspring cognition associations in 772 participants from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study. Offspring cognitive ability was assessed using Part 1 of the Alice Heim 4 (AH4) test of General Intelligence and by reaction time (RT)., Results: There was no evidence of a parental age association with offspring RT. However, we observed an inverse U-shaped association between paternal age and offspring AH4 score with the lowest scores observed for the youngest and oldest fathers. Adjustment for parental education and socioeconomic status somewhat attenuated this association. Adjustment for number of, particularly older, siblings further reduced the scores of children of younger fathers and appeared to account for the lower offspring scores in the oldest paternal age group., Conclusion: We observed a paternal age association with AH4 but not RT, a measure of cognition largely independent of social and educational experiences. Factors such as parental education, socioeconomic status and number of, particularly older, siblings may play an important role in accounting for paternal age-AH4 associations. Future studies should include parental intelligence.