Elisabetta Vallascas

Adipose tissue: Another target organ for lead accumulation? A study on sardinian children (Italy)

This study analyzes the relationship between lead levels and adipose tissue in Sardinian children. As an environmental pollutant, lead occurs in two different chemical forms: inorganic and organic lead; organic lead is present in the environment mainly as lead‐alkyls (tetramethyl and tetraethyl lead). The lead‐alkyls are characterized by their liposolubility; because of this characteristic, the behavior of organic Pb in the organism is similar to that of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). In fact, the high liposolubility of POPs, synthetic chemical substances highly resistant to biodegradation in both the environment and the human body, gives them a preferential tendency to accumulate in adipose tissue.

Hair lead levels to evaluate the subclinical impact of lead on growth in Sardinian children (Italy)

The aim of this study was to determine if there are significant relationships between lead concentrations in childrens hair and height, sitting height, and estimated leg length.

Growth charts of head length and breadth for regional areas? A study in Sardinia (Italy)

There exist few standards of head length and breadth from childhood to adulthood in Europoid populations. Moreover, such standards are based on samples that cannot be used as references for all populations since they were taken from different ethnic groups and from different periods. The aims of this study were: (1) to test whether standards derived from North Americans of European extraction can be used to assess the Sardinian population; and (2) to produce growth charts for head length and breadth for Sardinian males and females from 3 to 22 years of age. The cross sectional sample consisted of 9,721 subjects of Sardinian origin (4,884 males and 4,837 females), aged 3-22 years, measured from 1998 to 2008. Growth percentiles were produced with the LMS method. The mean values for each sex in each age class (3-18 years) are almost always significantly lower for both head length and breadth than the corresponding North American values. The exceptions are the head length of boys of 14 years and girls of 16-18 years where values for Sardinians are lower, but not significantly so. The results show that the North American standards are not appropriate for the assessment of Sardinian children. For the Sardinian population, specific regional growth charts should be used to correctly evaluate the normal range and the cut-off points of the extreme percentiles.

Offspring from endogamic vs. exogamic matings: Absence of anthropometric differences among Sardinian children (Italy)

This study evaluates possible differences in body dimensions among children from matings of different exogamy levels. The cross‐sectional sample consisted of 867 children, 435 males, and 432 females, 6–10 years old, attending elementary schools in the metropolitan area of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia (Italy). The children were divided into two groups according to the level of exogamy. The first group consisted of children of parents born in the same Sardinian municipality and was considered endogamous sensu stricto. The second group included children of parents born in municipalities from different Sardinian linguistic domains and was considered exogamous. The Mann–Whitney test did not reveal significant differences between the two groups of children in the mean rank values of the 36 anthropometric variables considered, with the exception of cephalic circumference in males and chest depth in females. In particular, there were no significant differences for anthropometric variables considered to be indirect indicators of nutritional status: sum of skinfolds, waist/hip ratio, body mass index, total upper arm area, upper arm muscle area, and upper arm fat area. The results indicate that Sardinian children from marriages of different exogamy levels do not differ in body dimensions if they grow up with similar nutritional and socioeconomic conditions. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2010.