ArticleBMC medicine2026
Early childhood weight gain and alanine aminotransferase at age 8: an adjunct study of the Japan Environment and Children's Study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe critical age window during which early-life adiposity impacts liver health remains unclear. This study aimed to identify the timing of adiposity gain associated with elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels in 8-year-old children.
methodsThis prospective cohort study included 1322 children (665 boys; mean age 96.2 ± 3.4 months) from a subset of the Japan Environment and Children's Study. Anthropometric data were collected at birth and at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Adiposity gain was assessed using conditional weight, a residual-based metric adjusted for prior weight and current height. Excess adiposity was defined as conditional weight above the 90th percentile. ALT was measured at age 8, with elevation defined as > 26 IU/L in boys and > 22 IU/L in girls. Multivariable regression models were adjusted for maternal, perinatal, and early-life factors.
resultsALT elevation was observed in 3.3% of the children. Adiposity gain was significantly associated with higher ALT concentrations, beginning at age 3 in girls (adjusted coefficient: 0.11, p < 0.01) and at age 4 in boys (adjusted coefficient: 0.10, p < 0.05). The 4-5-year interval marked the earliest period of notable risk, with adjusted risk ratios (95% CI) of 4.18 (1.77-9.87) in boys and 3.29 (1.04-10.40) in girls. Birth weight and adiposity during infancy were not consistently associated with ALT concentrations.
conclusionsEarly childhood-particularly between ages 3 and 5 years-may represent a period during which associations between excess adiposity gain and later liver health become detectable. Because liver enzymes were assessed at a single time point, the temporal onset of these associations cannot be established. These findings should be interpreted cautiously and warrant confirmation using longitudinal assessments of liver health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.