Press Releases Saturday 13 February 1999
No 7181 Volume 318
Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising
an
article and to tell your readers that they can read its full text on
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If your story is posted on a website please include a link back to
the source BMJ article (URL's are given under titles).
(1) PROBLEMS
IN PREGNANCY LINKED TO SCHIZOPHRENIA IN
YOUNG MEN
(2) LOW BIRTH
WEIGHT AND RAPID CATCH UP GROWTH ARE RISK
FACTORS FOR HEART DISEASE
(3) LIVE
KIDNEY DONORS COULD HOLD THE KEY TO ORGAN SHORTAGE
(1) PROBLEMS IN PREGNANCY LINKED TO SCHIZOPHRENIA IN
YOUNG MEN
(Prenatal and perinatal risk factors
for schizophrenia, affective psychosis,
and reactive psychosis of early
onset: case-control study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7181/421
Problems during pregnancy and the birth
process are risk factors for the
development of schizophrenia in young
men, says a study in this week's BMJ.
Christina Hultman from the University
of Uppsala, Sweden, and colleagues from
Europe and Japan show that bleeding
during pregnancy, multiparity [where the
mother has had at least three previous
births] and small size for gestational
age are associated with the development
of early onset schizophrenia.
The authors suggest that reduced placental
function may subtly impair foetal
brain development leaving the individual
more vulnerable to later schizophrenia.
Dr Hultman and colleagues found only a
weak link between these problems in
pregnancy and affective and reactive psychosis
in both sexes. They conclude
that if there is a relationship with these
two conditions it is much weaker than
with schizophrenia.
Contact:
Dr Christina M Hultman, Research Fellow,
Department of Neuroscience,
University of Uppsala, Sweden
email: christina.hultman{at}ullpsyk.uu.se
(2) LOW BIRTH WEIGHT
AND RAPID CATCH UP GROWTH ARE RISK
FACTORS FOR
HEART DISEASE
(Catch-up growth in childhood and
death from coronary heart disease :
longitudinal study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7181/427
Men who had low birth weight or were thin
at birth have high death rates from
coronary heart disease and death rates
are even higher if their weight "catches
up" in early childhood.
Johan Eriksson and colleagues from National
Public Health Institute in Finland
and David Barker and colleagues at the
MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit at
the University of Southampton studied
3,641 men born in Helsinki between 1924
and 1933 for whom detailed records of
growth and weight were available. In this
week's BMJ they report that the link between
low birth weight and high death
rates from coronary heart disease found
in this study is consistent with
findings from a UK cohort of 13,000+ men
and a Swedish study of 7000 men.
The new element is the link with catch
up growth in childhood. Men with the
highest rates of the disease were thin
at birth but by the age of seven years
their weight had "caught up" and thereafter
their body mass index was above
average. The authors suggest that
because thin babies lack muscle it is
possible that if they develop a high body
mass in childhood they may have a
disproportionately high fat mass.
Another possibility is that accelerated post
natal weight gain is intrinsically damaging,
the authors suggest. This unique
study suggests that programmes to reduce
obesity among boys may need to
focus on those who had low birth weight
or were thin at birth.
Contact :
Professor David Barker, Medical Research
Council Environmental Epidemiology
Unit, University of Southampton
email : david.barker{at}mrc.soton.ac.uk
(3) LIVE KIDNEY DONORS COULD HOLD THE KEY TO ORGAN SHORTAGE
(Renal transplantation from living
donors should be seriously considered
to help overcome the shortfall in
organs)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7181/409
Greater use of kidneys from living donors
offers scope for increasing the number
of kidney transplants argue Michael
Nicholson, Professor of Surgery at
Leicester General Hospital and Andrew
Bradley, Professor of Surgery at
Addenbrookes, in an editorial in
this week's BMJ.
Nicholson and Bradley say that 4,500 kidney
patients are waiting for transplants
in the UK but only one third will receive
one within the next year. Deaths from
road accidents and strokes have fallen
in the last 20 years and the traditional
donor pool will therefore not be sufficient
to meet demand.
The traditional attitude to living donors
has been understandably cautious but
the authors point out that 30 per cent
of transplants in the US and 45 per cent
in Norway are taken from living donors,
often the spouse or partner of the
recipient. Norway's climate and
terrain mean that travel to a dialysis unit may
take several hours and living donation
has developed as a pragmatic response to
the difficulty, the authors say.
The results of living donor kidney transplantation
are better than cadaveric
transplantation and the risks to
the donor are low, with a perioperative
mortality of 0.03 percent. Long
term prospective follow up of donors would help
address the criticism that kidney removal
is harmful even in healthy donors.
Contact:
Micheal L Nicholson, Professor of Surgery
FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS
Embargoed press releases and articles are available from:
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BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
(contact Jill Shepherd;pressoffice{at}bma.org.uk)
and from:
the EurekAlert website, run by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
(http://www.eurekalert.org)
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