Chronic disease begins in childhood

A conference report from the BGS Spring Meeting in Belfast, by Liz Gill.

Research is increasingly suggesting that old age is influenced by conditions and events in early life, a concept supported by data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, TILDA, which has studied 8,500 people aged 50 and over for the past ten years. Opening a special session on the last morning of the conference, its principal investigator Prof Rose-Anne Kenny of Trinity College Dublin, described the process. Participants were given an initial comprehensive assessment which included physical health, cognition, psychology, behaviour, family background and use of health care. They were then revisited every two years providing a rich set of data involving almost one in every 140 people in Ireland.