Childhood obesity genes identified
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An international genome-wide study involving thousands of cases identified at least two new gene variants linked to childhood obesity, a U.S. researcher says.
Lead investigator Struan F.A. Grant, associate director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and hospital colleagues Jonathan P. Bradfield, Dr. Hakon Hakonarson and Dr. Robert I. Berkowitz said the meta-analysis included 14 previous studies encompassing 5,530 cases of childhood obesity and 8,300 control subjects, all of European ancestry.
The study team identified two novel loci, one near the OLFM4 gene on chromosome 13, the other within the HOXB5 gene on chromosome 17, the study said.
U.S. teen birth rate lowest since 1946
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Fewer babies were born to U.S. teenagers ages 15-19 in 2010 - 367,752 - than in any year since 1946’s 322,380, federal health officials said.
The preliminary report by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, used the most current data available from the National Vital Statistics System found the 2010 total of births to teenagers was 43 percent lower than the peak recorded in 1970 at 644,708, the report said.
The U.S. teen birth rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching a historic low at 34.3 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19; the rate dropped 44 percent from 1991 through 2010, the report said.
