TBone Study: 25 Year Follow-up

The TBone Study is currently conducting a 25 year follow-up of a birth cohort to determine factors that influence healthy development. We are interested in examining how early life exposures including breastfeeding, smoking during pregnancy, diet during pregnancy, birth weight; and physical activity/fitness, diet, sun exposure, and vitamin D levels at age 8 and 16 can affect bone development and overall health.

In 1988/89, there were 13,592 live births in Tasmania. At the time of their births, a scoring system selected infants at higher risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) for possible participation in an infant health study. In Southern Tasmania 1500 infants were born who were eligible to join the study. Of these, the mothers of 1435 infants agreed to an in-hospital interview soon after the birth of their child and 80% filled in a questionnaire regarding diet in the third trimester of pregnancy.

In 1996/97, these children were followed up for individual studies on bone density, blood pressure, HDL cholesterol and vitamin D. We were able to identify 1156 of these children (or 81% which is in close agreement to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data on annual outward migration rates from Tasmania of 2.5%). A total of 888 took part and we assessed numerous health measures including anthropometrics, diet, sun exposure, physical activity, bone density, blood pressure, HDL cholesterol and vitamin D.

In 2004/05 we measured 415 of these children when they were 16 years.

We will now study these participants again at age 25.

Research Groups

Related Diseases

Staff

Team Leaders

  • Professor Graeme Jones

Team Members

  • Professor Tania Winzenberg
  • Dr Dawn Aitken
  • Associate Professor Leigh Blizzard
  • Carole Goff

External Collaborators

  • Dr Roger Zebaze
  • University of Melbourne

Related Funding Bodies