Pilot Study to Test the Methods for the Diet, Nutrition and Physical Activity Feasibility Study of Early Life Determinants of Adult Cancers in a Chinese Cohort of Adolescents and Their Mothers

Background:

Emerging epidemiological evidence suggests that early-life exposures in conjunction with genetic makeup and variability may be important in the etiology of many common adult cancers. Prospectively collected information on adolescent and early adulthood exposures is lacking and current evidence often relies on adult recall of the past with a limited array of exposure variables.

Long Term Objective:

1. To investigate the feasibility of assessing exposures that may be linked to early life exposures and to later diseases. Exposures include diet, physical activity, UV-exposure, DNAmethylation status, body size and reproductive factors. This feasibility work will inform additional research in an existing large Chinese-U.S. CDC collaborative project conducted in 1993 - 1995, the Community Intervention Program (CIP) (n = 247,000).

Short Term Objectives: 2. To determine the feasibility of collecting and assessing the quality of data on current diet, nutritional status, physical activity, physical strength, UV exposure, DNA methylation status and other environmental exposures as early life determinants of adult cancer in adolescents 15 - 17 years of age and early adulthood in their mothers. 3. To assess differences in methylation status of DNA between those exposed to periconceptional folic acid supplementation and those unexposed. 4. To compare dietary and physical activity self-reporting instruments against objective measures of dietary intake and physical activity, respectively.