Christopher W Kuzawa
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 74856 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Christopher W Kuzawa |
| PRENOMES | Christopher W |
| SOBRENOME | Kuzawa |
| ASSINATURA | KUZAWA C W |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Northwestern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0649-8677 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 87 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 349 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 87 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1998 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Recalled Adverse Childhood Experiences Predict Behavioral Traits Associated With an Accelerated Life History in Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have long been associated with poor health in adulthood, with many researchers interpreting these findings as evidence of a "fast" life history. In this study we utilize data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) to test the expectations of this framework among inhabitants of the Cebu metropolitan area in the Philippines. METHODS: Data on development, behavior, and reproduc…
Patterns of Chronic Stress in Diurnal Salivary Cortisol Already Predict Epigenetic Age Acceleration in Young Adults in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey
Epigenetic clocks estimate biological aging through age‐related DNA methylation patterns and are known to accelerate in response to adversity. While cortisol links stress experiences to cellular aging, the relationship between circadian cortisol and epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) remains unclear. To address this gap, we use data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) to explore linear relationships between diurnal saliv…
Developmental Influences on Racial Inequities in Cardiovascular Health
In 2009 we published an article in the American Journal of Human Biology arguing for a developmental contribution to US racial inequities in cardiovascular disease (CVD), inspired by emerging evidence that stress during pregnancy reduces birth weight (BW) while also elevating offspring CVD risk. The 15 years since our piece was published provide an opportunity to update the status of the hypothesis. Although relevant studies are sparse, work to d…
Intimate partner violence, depression, and chronic low‐grade inflammation among middle‐aged women in Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Recent discussions in human biology have highlighted how local ecological contexts shape the relationship between social stressors and health across populations. Chronic low-grade inflammation has been proposed as a pathway linking social stressors to health, with evidence concentrated in high-income Western contexts. However, it remains unclear whether this is an important pathway in populations where prevalence is lower due to lower…
Men's physical health and life history transitions in the Philippines
Psychological legacies of intergenerational trauma under South African apartheid
BACKGROUND: South Africa's rates of psychiatric morbidity are among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa and are foregrounded by the country's long history of political violence during apartheid. Growing evidence suggests that in utero stress exposure is a potent developmental risk factor for future mental illness risk, yet the extent to which the psychiatric effects of prenatal stress impact the next generation are unknown. We evaluate the intergen…
Association between infectious exposures in infancy and epigenetic age acceleration in young adulthood in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: The drivers of human life expectancy gains over the past 200 years are not well-established, with a potential role for historical reductions in infectious disease. We investigate whether infectious exposures in infancy predict biological aging using DNA methylation-based markers that forecast patterns of morbidity and mortality later in life. METHODS: N = 1450 participants from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey-a prosp…
Reply to Nwanaji‐Enwerema , 2023, “Exposome and low birthweight selection bias considerations in early life infections and epigenetic age relationships”
A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era
Recent studies demonstrating epigenetic and developmental sensitivity to early environments, as exemplified by fields like the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and environmental epigenetics, are bringing new data and models to bear on debates about race, genetics, and society. Here, we first survey the historical prominence of models of environmental determinism in early formulations of racial thinking to illustrate how notions…
Fathers' care in context
Group structure, but not dominance rank, predicts fecal androgen metabolite concentrations of wild male mountain gorillas ( Gorilla beringei beringei )
Androgens are important mediators of male‐male competition in many primate species. Male gorillas' morphology is consistent with a reproductive strategy that relies heavily on androgen‐dependent traits (e.g., extreme size and muscle mass). Despite possessing characteristics typical of species with an exclusively single‐male group structure, multimale groups with strong dominance hierarchies are common in mountain gorillas. Theory predicts that an…
Germline epigenetic inheritance
Recently, novel experimental approaches and molecular techniques have demonstrated that a male's experiences can be transmitted through his germline via epigenetic processes. These findings suggest that paternal exposures influence phenotypic variation in unexposed progeny–a proposal that runs counter to canonical ideas about inheritance developed during the 20th century. Nevertheless, support for paternal germline epigenetic inheritance (GEI) in…
Evolutionary life history theory as an organising framework for cohort studies
By tracking a group of individuals through time, cohort studies provide fundamental insights into the developmental time course and causes of health and disease. Evolutionary life history theory seeks to explain patterns of growth, development, reproduction and senescence, and inspires a range of hypotheses that are testable using the longitudinal data from cohort studies. Here we review two decades of life history theory-motivated work conducted…
Early life stress and HPA axis function independently predict adult depressive symptoms in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Alterations in adult hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity have increasingly been linked with early life stress and adult depression, but a limited number of studies have used longitudinal data to explore HPA axis dysregulation as an underlying mechanism driving the long-term depressive impacts of early stressors. Here we address potential long-term impacts of early life, family-based stress on depressive symptoms among y…
Testing for paternal influences on offspring telomere length in a human cohort in the Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Telomeres, emerging biomarkers of aging, are comprised of DNA repeats located at chromosomal ends that shorten with cellular replication and age in most human tissues. In contrast, spermatocyte telomeres lengthen with age. These changes in telomere length (TL) appear to be heritable, as older paternal ages of conception (PAC) predict longer offspring TL. Mouse-model studies raise questions about the potential for effects of paternal e…
C-reactive protein response to influenza vaccination predicts cardiovascular disease risk in the Philippines
Inflammation is associated with increased risk for chronic degenerative diseases, as well as age-related functional declines across many systems and tissues. Current understandings of inflammation, aging, and human health are based on studies conducted almost exclusively in high-income nations that rely primarily on baseline measures of chronic inflammation. This analysis investigates the inflammatory response to vaccination as a predictor of car…
Sociosexuality, testosterone, and life history status
Regulation of inflammation during gestation and birth outcomes
OBJECTIVES: The maternal environment during gestation influences offspring health at birth and throughout the life course. Recent research has demonstrated that endogenous immune processes such as dysregulated inflammation adversely impact birth outcomes, increasing the risk for preterm birth and restricted fetal growth. Prior analyses examining this association suggest a relationship between maternal C-reactive protein (CRP), a summary measure o…
Early life growth and adult telomere length in a Filipino cohort study
OBJECTIVE: We investigated the relationship between early life growth patterns and blood telomere length (TL) in adulthood using conditional measures of lean and fat mass growth to evaluate potentially sensitive periods of early life growth. METHODS: This study included data from 1562 individuals (53% male; age 20-22 years) participating in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, located in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines. Primary expos…
Ankle brachial index (ABI) in a cohort of older women in the Philippines
The prevalence of PAD is low in Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey participants, and ABI was related to few CVD risk factors. Past reports of lower PAD risk in relation to BMI may reflect confounding by lean mass, which has protective relationships with ABI
Carotid foramen size in the human skull tracks developmental changes in cerebral blood flow and brain metabolism
OBJECTIVES: In humans, neuronal processes related to brain development elevate the metabolic rate of brain tissue relative to the body during early childhood. This phenomenon has been hypothesized to contribute to slow somatic growth in preadolescent Homo sapiens. The uncoupling of the brain's metabolic rate from brain size during development complicates the study of the evolutionary emergence of these traits in the fossil record. Here, we extend…
Genome‐wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to socioeconomic status during development and early adulthood
OBJECTIVES: Socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of health, but the underlying biological mechanisms are poorly understood. This study investigates whether levels of DNA methylation at CpG sites across the genome are associated with SES in a cohort of young adults in the Philippines. METHODS: DNA methylation was assayed with the Illumina HumanMethylation450 Bead Chip, in leukocytes from 489 participants in the Cebu Longitudinal He…
Menarcheal timing is accelerated by favorable nutrition but unrelated to developmental cues of mortality or familial instability in Cebu, Philippines
Lifetime socioeconomic status and early life microbial environments predict adult blood telomere length in the Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Psychosocial stress is postulated to hasten senescence in part by accelerating the shortening of telomere length (TL). One pathway through which this may happen is via increasing inflammation and innate immune system activation-a pathway which recent studies suggest acts more strongly for those who grew up in low microbial environments. Thus, we hypothesized that: (1) Psychosocial stress will be inversely associated with TL, (2) early…
Does a man's testosterone “rebound” as dependent children grow up, or when pairbonds end? A test in Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVE: Cross-culturally, men's T declines in response to pairbonding and fatherhood, but less is known about what happens to T during and after life history transitions that theoretically lead to renewed mating effort. We tested whether men's T rises (or declines less with age) as their children age, or when pairbonds end, independent of changes in fatherhood-related variables such as co-residence with children. METHODS: We used demographic, …
Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
We use an expanded framework of multiple epidemiologic transitions to review the issues of re/emerging infection. The first epidemiologic transition was associated with a rise in infectious diseases that accompanied the Neolithic Revolution. The second epidemiologic transition involved the shift from infectious to chronic disease mortality associated with industrialization. The recent resurgence of infectious disease mortality marks a third epide…
Plasticity in Human Life History Strategy
The life history of Homo sapiens is characterized by a lengthy period of juvenile dependence that requires extensive allocare, short interbirth intervals with concomitantly high fertility rates, and a life span much longer than that of other extant great apes. Although recognized as species-defining, the traits that make up human life history are also notable for their extensive within- and between-population variation, which appears to trace lar…
Developmental Origins of Adult Function and Health
Many biological systems have critical periods that overlap with the age of maternal provisioning via placenta or lactation. As such, they serve as conduits for phenotypic information transfer between generations and link maternal experience with offspring biology and disease outcomes. This review critically evaluates proposals for an adaptive function of these responses in humans. Although most models assume an adult function for the metabolic re…
Ethnic discrimination predicts poor self-rated health and cortisol in pregnancy
Genome‐wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to socioeconomic status during development and early adulthood
OBJECTIVES: Socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of health, but the underlying biological mechanisms are poorly understood. This study investigates whether levels of DNA methylation at CpG sites across the genome are associated with SES in a cohort of young adults in the Philippines. METHODS: DNA methylation was assayed with the Illumina HumanMethylation450 Bead Chip, in leukocytes from 489 participants in the Cebu Longitudinal He…
Testing the Protein Leverage Hypothesis in a free-living human population
Testosterone, physical activity, and somatic outcomes among Filipino males
Testosterone (T) facilitates male investment in reproduction in part through its anabolic effects on skeletal muscle. Traits like muscle and strength are energetically costly but are believed to enhance competitive ability in humans and other mammals. However, there are limited data on relationships between T and somatic outcomes in lean, non‐western populations. We evaluate relationships between waking and pre‐bed salivary T and adiposity, fat‐f…
Testosterone, Immune Function, and Life History Transitions in Filipino Males (Homo sapiens)
Prolactin, fatherhood, and reproductive behavior in human males
Although humans are considered unusual among mammals for the intensity of care that fathers often provide offspring, little is known about the hormonal architecture regulating human paternal investment. Prolactin has important reproductive functions in both female and male mammals and other taxa, making it a candidate regulator of human paternal behavior. Notably, prolactin is higher during periods of offspring care in some species, but it is unk…
Leptin in a lean population of Filipino adolescents
To clarify the role of leptin as a signal of energy status in humans, this study investigated the relationship of leptin to measures of body composition, maturity, and lifestyle factors in a lean sample of 293 male and 303 female Filipino adolescents (age 14–16 years). Participants were selected from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, a representative birth cohort study begun in 1983. Using IOTF criteria, the prevalence of overwei…
Comparative insights into the regulation of inflammation
Inflammation is a central part of innate immunity, but its role in anti‐pathogen defenses has been overshadowed by recent interest in the contribution of inflammation to a wide range of chronic degenerative diseases. Current research on chronic inflammation is conducted primarily in affluent populations with low levels of infectious disease; comparative research in different ecological settings is needed to advance understandings of the causes an…
Second‐to‐fourth digit ratio (2D
OBJECTIVES: A low second-to-fourth (2D:4D) digit ratio, a retrospective marker of high prenatal androgens, predicts increased investment in costly sexually dimorphic traits in men in some studies, although results are mixed. Here we test the hypothesis that the association of low 2D:4D ratios with increased muscularity and decreased adiposity depends on current testosterone (T) levels, such that digit ratio will be a particularly strong predictor…
Developmental energetics, sibling death, and parental instability as predictors of maturational tempo and life history scheduling in males from C ebu, P hilippines
OBJECTIVES: Cross-species comparisons show that high extrinsic mortality favors the evolution of "faster" life histories. There is interest in applying this principle to human life history plasticity, based on the idea that psychosocial stressors that correlate with extrinsic mortality accelerate reproductive pace. Most prior studies have been conducted in settings in which psychosocial stressors co-occur with the maturation-accelerating influenc…
Early life stress and HPA axis function independently predict adult depressive symptoms in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines
OBJECTIVES: Alterations in adult hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity have increasingly been linked with early life stress and adult depression, but a limited number of studies have used longitudinal data to explore HPA axis dysregulation as an underlying mechanism driving the long-term depressive impacts of early stressors. Here we address potential long-term impacts of early life, family-based stress on depressive symptoms among y…
Worldwide allele frequencies of the human apolipoprotein E gene
The ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E ( APOE ) gene is associated with increased cholesterol levels and heart disease. Population allele frequencies of APOE have previously been shown to vary, with ε4 frequencies generally increasing with latitude. We hypothesize that this trend resulted from natural selection protecting against low‐cholesterol levels. In high‐latitude cold environments and low‐latitude hot environments, metabolic rate is elevate…
Adipose tissue in human infancy and childhood
Humans diverge from most mammals, including nonhuman primates, by depositing significant quantities of body fat in utero and are consequently one of the fattest species on record at birth. While explanations for the fat layer of human neonates have commonly assumed that it serves as insulation to compensate for hairlessness, empirical support for this hypothesis is presently weak. Whether the tissue's abundance at birth and growth changes in adip…
Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases
We use an expanded framework of multiple epidemiologic transitions to review the issues of re/emerging infection. The first epidemiologic transition was associated with a rise in infectious diseases that accompanied the Neolithic Revolution. The second epidemiologic transition involved the shift from infectious to chronic disease mortality associated with industrialization. The recent resurgence of infectious disease mortality marks a third epide…
Infants thinner at birth exhibit smaller kidneys for their size in late gestation in a sample of fetuses with appropriate growth
Fetal ultrasound measurements were employed to investigate the relationship between weight and ponderal index at birth and kidney size during the second (23 weeks) and third (32 weeks) trimesters of pregnancy in a sample of 25 normally growing fetuses. Kidney volume and kidney volume / fetal weight ratio at 32 weeks are significantly and positively related to both weight and ponderal index at birth, controlling for sex, gestational age at birth, …
Metabolic correlates of hominid brain evolution
Prenatal smoke exposure alters growth in limb proportions and head shape in the midgestation human fetus
The objective of this study was to examine the effects of smoke exposure on the growth patterns of the head, limbs, and torso of the midgestation human fetus. Four hundred maternal/fetal pairs contributed to this analysis: 366 individuals were assessed cross‐sectionally (87 smokers and 279 nonsmokers) at approximately 20 and 32 weeks, and 34 individuals were followed longitudinally at 23, 27, and 32 weeks (10 smokers, 24 nonsmokers). Ten body par…
Atherogenic lipid profiles in Filipino adolescents with low body mass index and low dietary fat intake
This study reports mean lipid levels and their association with body composition, diet, and activity level in 300 male and 308 female adolescents (14-16 years) living in Cebu City, the Philippines. Participants were selected from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS), a 1-year birth cohort study begun in 1982-83. Lipid profiles suggest high cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in this sample, despite low intake of dietary fat (22…
Growth patterns of the heart and kidney suggest inter-organ collaboration in facultative fetal growth
Maternal smoking during pregnancy has been associated with a number of negative sequelae among offspring, including elevated postnatal blood pressure. While animal studies have described organ level alterations with smoke exposure, human data have been more limited. Thirty-four healthy maternal/fetal pairs (24 nonsmokers, 10 smokers) participated in a longitudinal growth study from the thirteenth week of pregnancy to document fetal kidney and hea…
Fetal origins of developmental plasticity
Evidence that fetal nutrition triggers permanent adjustments in a wide range of systems and health outcomes is stimulating interest in the evolutionary significance of these responses. This review evaluates the postnatal adaptive significance of fetal developmental plasticity from the perspective of life history theory and evolutionary models of energy partitioning. Birthweight is positively related to multiple metabolically costly postnatal func…
The origins of the developmental origins hypothesis and the role of postnatal environments
Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation (review)
Reviewed by: Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation Christopher W. Kuzawa Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation, edited by Jay Schulkin. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2004. 384 pp. $100 (hardcover). For much of the past century the study of physiology has rested on the bedrock assumption that our bodies maintain a constant internal environment through the action of a network of …
Developmental origins of life history
There is now much evidence that early life undernutrition elevates risk of diseases like cardiovascular disease. Less clear is whether the underlying developmental plasticity in metabolism and physiology evolved to serve an adaptive function, beyond these effects on pathophysiology. This review builds from principles of life history theory to propose a functional model linking early environments with adult biology. An organism has metabolic poten…
Leptin in a lean population of Filipino adolescents
To clarify the role of leptin as a signal of energy status in humans, this study investigated the relationship of leptin to measures of body composition, maturity, and lifestyle factors in a lean sample of 293 male and 303 female Filipino adolescents (age 14–16 years). Participants were selected from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, a representative birth cohort study begun in 1983. Using IOTF criteria, the prevalence of overwei…
Developmental changes in the relationship between leptin and adiposity among Tsimané children and adolescents
Leptin is thought to signal energy stores, thus helping the body balance energy intake and expenditure. However, the strong relationship between leptin and adiposity in populations with adequate nutrition or common obesity is not universal across ecologic contexts, and leptin often correlates only weakly, or not at all, with adiposity in populations of lean or marginally‐nourished males. To clarify whether the relationship between adiposity and l…
Self‐reported illness and birth weight in the Philippines
It has been proposed that prenatal nutrition provides the fetus with a cue allowing it to adjust biological settings in anticipation of postnatal nutrition. To evaluate the reliability of fetal growth rate as a nutritional cue, this study assesses the extent to which a nonnutritional factor‐maternal illness symptoms during pregnancy‐predicts birth outcomes in a large, population‐based sample of Filipino women and their newborns ( n = 2,887). Self…
Epigenetics and the embodiment of race
The relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to the US black‐white disparity in cardiovascular disease (CVD) is hotly debated within the public health, anthropology, and medical communities. In this article, we review evidence for developmental and epigenetic pathways linking early life environments with CVD, and critically evaluate their possible role in the origins of these racial health disparities. African Americans not o…
Developmental Origins of Adult Function and Health
Many biological systems have critical periods that overlap with the age of maternal provisioning via placenta or lactation. As such, they serve as conduits for phenotypic information transfer between generations and link maternal experience with offspring biology and disease outcomes. This review critically evaluates proposals for an adaptive function of these responses in humans. Although most models assume an adult function for the metabolic re…
Breastfeeding and later psychosocial development in the Philippines
Objectives: Evaluate whether breastfeeding (BF) duration predicts later psychosocial development (PD) in a large low socioeconomic status (SES) sample in the Philippines. Methods: The sample consists of 2,752 children aged 5–6 years who were measured in 2004 as part of the Philippine government's Early Childhood Development Project. Duration of any BF was the primary independent variable in regression models predicting a cumulative index of PD th…
Positive antibody response to vaccination in adolescence predicts lower C‐reactive protein concentration in young adulthood in the philippines
This study provides evidence for a prospective, within-individual link between more effective antibody-mediated immune defenses and lower levels of inflammation. In the context of prior research in this population, these results suggest that early environments are important determinants of multiple aspects of an individual's immuno-phenotype
Testosterone, physical activity, and somatic outcomes among Filipino males
Testosterone (T) facilitates male investment in reproduction in part through its anabolic effects on skeletal muscle. Traits like muscle and strength are energetically costly but are believed to enhance competitive ability in humans and other mammals. However, there are limited data on relationships between T and somatic outcomes in lean, non‐western populations. We evaluate relationships between waking and pre‐bed salivary T and adiposity, fat‐f…
Worldwide allele frequencies of the human apolipoprotein E gene
The ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E ( APOE ) gene is associated with increased cholesterol levels and heart disease. Population allele frequencies of APOE have previously been shown to vary, with ε4 frequencies generally increasing with latitude. We hypothesize that this trend resulted from natural selection protecting against low‐cholesterol levels. In high‐latitude cold environments and low‐latitude hot environments, metabolic rate is elevate…
Biological memories of past environments
Human health tends to mirror gradients in social standing related to class, ethnicity and race. Past research in the social sciences suggests that environmental experiences related to social status contribute to these disparities, but the underlying biological mechanisms are only partially understood. Here, we review research related to three domains of environmental exposure that point to epigenetic contributions to health disparities: nutrition…
Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males
In species in which males care for young, testosterone (T) is often high during mating periods but then declines to allow for caregiving of resulting offspring. This model may apply to human males, but past human studies of T and fatherhood have been cross-sectional, making it unclear whether fatherhood suppresses T or if men with lower T are more likely to become fathers. Here, we use a large representative study in the Philippines ( n = 624) to…
Cohort Profile
The Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) was originally conceptualized as an interdisciplinary study of infant-feeding patterns, particularly the overall sequencing of feeding events (milks and complementary foods), the factors affecting feeding decisions and how feeding patterns affect the infant, mother and household. The idea was to study these topics within as natural a setting as possible and to analyse how infant-feeding de…
Cortisol and testosterone in Filipino young adult men
OBJECTIVES: Although cortisol (CORT) may suppress testosterone (T) production under stress, in many species males' T and CORT are co-elevated during mate acquisition or conspecific competition. It is presently unknown how CORT co-varies with T in relation to fatherhood/relationship status in men. Here we evaluate associations between waking (AM) and pre-bed (PM) salivary CORT and T, and with plasma total T and luteinizing hormone. We also test wh…
Substantial variation in qPCR measured mean blood telomere lengths in young men from eleven European countries
These findings suggest considerable population variation in BTL in Europe that is not obviously a result of broad measures of population structure or infection/economic exposure measured in early life or in adulthood.Studying telomere dynamics in a wider variety of populations, and with greater attention to life-cycle dynamics, will be important to help elucidate the causes and possible consequences of human population variation in telomere lengt…
Medicine (68 obras) · Biology (65 obras) · Demography (42 obras) · Internal Medicine (40 obras) · Birth, Development, and Health (33 obras) · Endocrinology (33 obras) · Pregnancy (31 obras) · Population (28 obras) · Physiology (25 obras) · Psychology (24 obras)