Israeli jewish infants of different descent: growth patterns, likeness and differences. Longitudinal study.
BACKGROUND
Due to increasing migration process and intermarriages among individuals belonging to different ethnic groups, it is important to examine whether intermixing of populations effects child growth rate.


OBJECTIVE
To compare growth patterns of Jewish infants from distinct descent.


METHODS
1300 Israeli children were divided into 7 groups: 4 groups of babies with both parents from the same geographic origin (Europe, Yemen, Middle East or North Africa) and 3 inter-mixed groups according to genetic distances between the parents' derivation.


METHODS
The studied infants were monitored longitudinally for both body length. weight and head circumference from birth until 20 months of life. Using the curve fitting technique the follow-up data were fitted to the 3-parameter Count model.


METHODS
Three sets of maximal likelihood estimates of the model parameters were obtained to test the growth patterns of different groups of Jewish children: individually-specific for every child, group specific for each individual within the group, and general for all individuals from all studied groups. Likelihood ratio test was used to examine whether the chosen function of trait dependence on age is uniformly reliable for all individuals from all the considered groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Significant differences were indicated between all studied growth curves for all three studied traits. Moreover, distances calculated between the studied cohorts demonstrated a clear distinction between the clusters of "non-mixed" and "mixed" groups for length and weight. Since the studied children were born and developed in similar environments, these results may serve as important evidence for the existence of a genetic effect on the growth process.
Peter
Inga
I
Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Ginsburg
Emil Kh
EKh
Malkin
Ida
I
Kobyliansky
Eugene
E
D001827:Body Height / Q000235:genetics; D001835:Body Weight / Q000235:genetics; D002508:Cephalometry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002657:Child Development; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007557:Israel; D007585:Jews / Q000235:genetics*; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010375:Pedigree; D010641:Phenotype; D012931:Social Environment