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PubMedDate not supplied

The adaptive significance of Polynesian body form.

The Polynesian people who settled a wide area of the tropical Pacific have a large and muscular body phenotype that appears to contradict the classical biological rules of Bergmann and Allen. However, a scrutiny of the conditions actually experienced by these canoe voyagers and small-island dwellers suggests that in reality the oceanic environment is labile and frequently very cold, and from it tribal technology offered little protection. The Polynesian phenotype is considered to be appropriate to, and have undergone selection for, this oceanic environment.

Acclimatization↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The Maoris of New Zealand: a historical view of culture and family.

The Maoris of New Zealand have an interesting history and culture. In this selected review of literature supplemented with data from limited interviews with Maoris is described their history of settlement, oppression, and rebuilding of their cultures. The Maoris make up approximately 12% of New Zealand's population, which is predominantly white. The Maori family has moved from tribal form to extended family to nuclear family, and is currently moving back in the direction of extended family. There is a renewed effort by Maoris to assist their own people to rise from their predominantly lower socioeconomic class and to rebuild their culture. Maori women appear to be playing the major role in these rebuilding efforts.

Cultural Characteristics↗
PubMed2000

Age differences in physique of adult males aged 30 to 86 years in Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.

In the Pacific Region, some adult populations have shown a steady rise in overweight and obesity across the 1970s and into the 1990s. While younger adults have been shown to have lower body mass index (BMI) than older ones in both the least and most modernised Samoan populations, among intermediately modernised Samoan populations, BMI has been found to be higher in younger adults than in older ones. A survey in the Cook Islands carried out in 1966 showed no age group differences in height, weight and BMI among adult males, but significantly higher mean weight and BMI among adult males aged 30 years and above. The present analysis gives mean height, weight, BMI and skinfolds of adult males above 30 years of age on Rarotonga in 1996, and examines whether the BMI-age group relationship now shows a similar transitional pattern to that observed on American Samoa. In addition, the 1996 values are compared with values obtained in 1986, to determine whether changes in physique have taken place across this time. In the 1996 volunteer sample of 142 male Cook Islanders, older adults are significantly shorter, lighter, with lower BMI than younger adults. Furthermore, the younger adults of the 1996 survey are significantly heavier, with greater BMI than the 1986 sample. This suggests that the adult male Rarotongan population is in an intermediate position with respect to lifestyle transition, the secular trend in body size and increasing prevalence of obesity, and that there has been a rapid increase in body fatness prevalence among younger adults.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Reproducibility and validity of a food frequency questionnaire in European and Polynesian New Zealanders.

The reproducibility and validity of a self-administered 142-item food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was assessed in a population comprising 124 European and 52 Polynesian (17 Maori and 35 Pacific Island) New Zealanders aged 40-65 years. Reproducibility correlation coefficients, determined by administration of the same questionnaire on two occasions 3 years apart, were higher in European than Maori and Pacific Island participants, ranging from 0.47 to 0.87 in Europeans (median 0.66) and from 0.41 to 0.79 in Maori and Pacific Island people (median 0.44). In general, there were no significant differences in mean nutrient intakes calculated from the two FFQs by Europeans or Maori and Pacific Island participants despite their cultural and language differences. When the FFQ was compared with a 3-day food diary in a subsample of 101 Europeans, 15 Maori and 22 Pacific Islanders, the validity was good for most nutrients, with overestimation of a few nutrients in each ethnic group. Correlation coefficients between the 3-day food diary and FFQ ranged from 0.41 to 0.81 in Europeans (median 0.48) and from 0.36 to 0.56 in Maori and Pacific Island people (median 0.55). Ratios of energy intake to resting metabolic rate suggested that Maori and Pacific Island people were more likely to underestimate their habitual energy intake by the 3-day diet diary method compared to Europeans, but that Europeans were more likely to underestimate total energy intake by the food frequency method and Pacific Island participants to overestimate it. Obese Europeans and Maori were more likely to under-report dietary intakes by the 3-day diary method. We conclude that our FFQ performed better in European than Maori and Pacific Island participants.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Probable second fetus with Marles-Chudley syndrome: cardiac calcifications with ulnar deficiency and absent/hypoplastic thumbs.

In 1990 Marles and Chudley reported on an infant with absent ulnae and concomitant radial hypoplasia, oligodactyly, hydropsfetalis, and apparent endocardial fibroelastosis (EFE) and, on the basis of phenotype and parental consanguinity, postulated autosomal recessive inheritance. Recently we were privileged to study parts of a fetus who had presented at ultrasonography with cardiac calcifications, micrognathia, and severe ulnar dysgenesis. The small pieces of heart we received showed neither endocardial fibroelastosis nor calcifications. Thus, we had initial doubts that we were dealing with the Marles-Chudley syndrome. However, a review by Chudley of the heart findings in his cases did show the calcifications usually seen in primary or secondary EFE. The parents of Dr. Chudley's patient were Flipino; the father of our patient was a Samoan. This suggests that there exists a gene for autosomal recessive Marles-Chudley syndrome in the Poynesian population with pleiotropic effects on upper limb development and cardiac histogenesis.

Abnormalities, Multiple↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Seasonality of vital events in a Pacific Island population.

Analyses of vital data derived from a family record register for the native population of Guam reveal significant variations in births, deaths, and marriages over the period 1901-41. Although lacking marked photoperiod or temperature changes of temperate zones, the tropical island is subject to marked seasonal differences in rainfall characteristic of western Pacific islands. Marital patterns exhibit troughs associated respectively with the Lenten period and with Christmas celebrations. Infant and childhood deaths show close correspondence with rainfall patterns, consistently exceeding expected values during the rainy season (July-November) when conditions are optimal for the spread of communicable and gastrointestinal diseases. Births attain a peak in November, or at the beginning of the more advantageous season for infant health and survival. Seasonality in vital events, reported for many Euroamerican and some African and Asian populations of modern and historical periods, has rarely been documented for native populations of the tropical Pacific. Comparisons of differences in these patterns among different populations in varied environments provide unique opportunities to evaluate causal models of interactions among biological, sociocultural, and physioenvironmental factors.

Delivery, Obstetric↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Secondary sex ratios in Micronesian populations.

Secondary sex ratio (SSR) values in excess of 109 male for every 100 female livebirths have been reported from several Micronesian populations. Analyses of linked family records dating from before 1942 for the native people of Guam reveal a highly masculinized SSR even at high birth orders and parental ages of married fertile couples. These findings contrast with reported declines in SSR with parity and parental age among historical and modern populations in Europe and North America where such declines often have been ascribed to the effects of decreasing mean coital frequencies associated with marital duration and spousal age. This study challenges implicit assumptions about the supposed universality of Euroamerican patterns of marital sexual behavior and supports the coital frequency hypothesis of SSR determination.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sex ratios at birth in a Micronesian Atoll population.

The recent suggestion that typically masculinized sex ratios at birth in Micronesian populations may be related to a distinct "Micronesian pattern" of life-course coital behavior is applied to data on the sex ratio of livebirths on Butaritari Atoll in Kiribati. The data show that sex ratios on Butaritari are highly masculinized and do not vary significantly with changes in maternal age. However, there is a discernible relationship between the length of closed intervals preceding male and female births. The lack of age-related change in sex ratios in the Butaritari sample is inconsistent with ethnographic data regarding levels of marital coital activity in relation to increasing age and marriage duration. The Butaritari sex ratio data is argued to support the suggestion of a "Micronesian pattern," although it is posed that further tests of this association are required.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Capgras syndrome: possibly more common among the Maori of New Zealand.

OBJECTIVE: The report describes an apparently greater incidence of Capgras syndrome among the Maori population compared with the European population, in the most easterly catchment area served by Tauranga Hospital in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. METHOD: Over the last year we have become aware of five cases of Capgras syndrome in our catchment area. This area (population nearly 21,000) consists of a rapidly expanding new suburb of the city of Tauranga and a rural area extending 55 km east of the city. These figures were compared with those of the westerly catchment area served by Tauranga Hospital, where the psychiatric team is not aware of any examples of Capgras syndrome among their population. The 1996 census figures were obtained in order to calculate a population ethnicity breakdown. RESULTS: Five cases of Capgras syndrome were identified in the most easterly catchment area where 19% of the population identified as Maori, 75% as European and 6% as other or non-specified. All of the cases occurred in Maori patients. This compares with no identified cases of Capgras syndrome in the most westerly catchment area where 12% of the population identified as Maori, 87% as European and 1% as other or non-specified. Four out of five cases were female. Two cases had a history of cannabis use. Three cases had exhibited dangerous behaviour towards family members. CONCLUSIONS: There is an apparently greater incidence of Capgras syndrome among the New Zealand Maori population compared with the European population in the most easterly catchment area served by Tauranga Hospital. In our population Capgras syndrome is a common, not rare, feature of psychotic illness, and the cases support a previously reported association of this syndrome with dangerousness.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Prevalence of mental disorders among Māori in Te Rau Hinengaro: the New Zealand Mental Health Survey.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the prevalence of mental disorders (period prevalence across aggregated disorders, 12 month and lifetime prevalence) among Māori in Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey. METHOD: Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey, undertaken between 2003 and 2004, was a nationally representative face-to-face household survey of 12,992 New Zealand adults aged 16 years and over, including 2,595 Māori. Ethnicity was measured using the 2001 New Zealand census ethnicity question. A fully structured diagnostic interview, the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey Initiative version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI 3.0), was used to measure disorder. The overall response rate was 73.3%. This paper presents selected findings for the level and pattern of mental disorder prevalence among Māori. RESULTS: Māori lifetime prevalence of any disorder was 50.7%, 12 month prevalence 29.5% and 1 month prevalence 18.3%. The most common 12 month disorders were anxiety (19.4%), mood (11.4%) and substance (8.6%) disorders and the most common lifetime disorders were anxiety (31.3%), substance (26.5%) and mood (24.3%) disorders. Levels of lifetime comorbidity were high with 12 month prevalence showing 16.4% of Māori with one disorder, 7.6% with two disorders and 5.5% with three or more disorders. Twelve-month disorders were more common in Māori females than in males (33.6%vs 24.8%) and in younger age groups: 16-24 years, 33.2%; 25-44 years, 32.9%; 45-64 years, 23.7%; and 65 years and over, 7.9%. Disorder prevalence was greatest among Māori with the lowest equivalized household income and least education. However, differences by urbanicity and region were not significant. Of Māori with any 12 month disorder, 29.6% had serious, 42.6% had moderate and 27.8% had mild disorders. CONCLUSION: Mental disorders overall and specific disorder groups (anxiety, mood and substance) are common among Māori and measures of severity indicate that disorders have considerable health impact. Findings provide a platform for informing public health policy and health sector responses to meeting mental health needs of Māori.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

The hemochromatosis 845 G-->A and 187 C-->G mutations: prevalence in non-Caucasian populations.

Hemochromatosis, the inherited disorder of iron metabolism, leads, if untreated, to progressive iron overload and premature death. The hemochromatosis gene, HFE, recently has been identified, and characterization of this gene has shown that it contains two mutations that result in amino acid substitutions-cDNA nucleotides 845 G-->A (C282Y) and 187 C-->G (H63D). Although hemochromatosis is common in Caucasians, affecting >=1/300 individuals of northern European origin, it has not been recognized in other populations. The present study used PCR and restriction-enzyme digestion to analyze the frequency of the 845 G-->A and 187 C-->G mutations in HLA-typed samples from non-Caucasian populations, comprising Australian Aboriginal, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders. Results showed that the 845 G-->A mutation was present in these populations (allele frequency 0.32%), and, furthermore, it was always seen in conjunction with HLA haplotypes common in Caucasians, suggesting that 845 G-->A may have been introduced into these populations by Caucasian admixture. 187 C-->G was present at an allele frequency of 2.68% in the two populations analyzed (Australian Aboriginal and Chinese). In the Australian Aboriginal samples, 187 C-->G was found to be associated with HLA haplotypes common in Caucasians, suggesting that it was introduced by recent admixture. In the Chinese samples analyzed, 187 C-->G was present in association with a wide variety of HLA haplotypes, showing this mutation to be widespread and likely to predate the more genetically restricted 845 G-->A mutation.

Adenine↗