ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

In this review, Prof Zeev Hochberg presents the characteristics and the function of the juvenile stage of life of human beings from a broad evolutionary perspective.Homo sapiens is unique in having four postnatal pre-adult life stages: infancy, childhood, juvenility and adolescence. Unlike humans, all other mammals (including the great apes) transit directly from infancy to juvenility and then to adulthood, without the childhood and adolescence stages. T...

Brief summary: This review uses an evolutionary approach to provide an interesting discussion on a proposed period of development called ‘emerging adulthood’. The authors explain that it can be seen not only as a sociological transition period but also as a biological life-history phase.The central theme of this review is ‘emerging adulthood’, which is the concept that an additional 4-6-year pre-adult period should be included in mode...

To read the full abstract: Front. Endocrinol. 2020; 11:106. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.00106• The authors assessed the relationship between markers of a stressful environment and final height in adult men and women in 71 countries (including 31 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]).• They found that the more stressful the e...

Brief summary: The authors assessed the relationship between markers of a stressful environment and final height in adult men and women in 71 countries (including 31 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]). They found that the more stressful the environment, the shorter the adult height. By order of decreasing importance, the relationship between markers of a stressful environment and height were income inequality > ...

Brief summary: This prospective study, including 380 American girls followed from birth to age 15.5 years between 1991 and 2006, showed the predictive nature of age at onset of puberty for the subsequent progression and duration of pubertal maturation.Ze’ev Hochberg’s scientific and clinical curiosity is an inspiration for us all. Ze’ev approached the topic of puberty using evolutionary and developmental biology principles, according to wh...

To read the full abstract: Diabetes Care. 2020;43(2):405–410. doi: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31727688/Here, Gawlik et al. describe the urinary steroid metabolomic profile associated with insulin resistance (IR) as assessed in a cohort of 87 non-syndromic obese children and adolescents.To explore the previously defined novel concept of a disease-spe...

Prof Hochberg was an exceptional paediatrician, endocrinologist and paediatric endocrinologist. He had an inquisitive mind, interest in various and wide fields, love for music, operas, books and people. Even in the field of endocrinology, he always researched beyond the visible. His groundbreaking contributions to the field of paediatric endocrinology have left an indelible mark on the medical community.Comment: To distinguish among chil...

Ze’ev Hochberg was fascinated by growth, a dominant topic during his long-standing career. He published 153 articles on growth according to PubMed, the first 1980 [1] and the last in April this year [2]. Synergy between thyroid hormones and growth hormone was recognized decades ago [3] but Ze’ev Hochberg added an important piece of knowledge on the impact of hypothyroidism on the growth plate as well as the effects of thyroid hormones, growth hormone and the combinat...

Brief summary: this early experimental study analyzed the effects of radiation on growth hormone secretion and short-term cell survival in a cell culture model of dispersed rat anterior pituitary cells.At the time of this study, growth retardation had already been recognized as a significant adverse effect of brain irradiation in humans and experimental animals. Such growth retardation had been associated with impaired secretion of growth hormone in chil...

In Brief: This manuscript was prepared from presentations given at the ESPE New Inroads for Child Health (NICHe) conference held in May 2009 in Marstrand, Sweden. It reviewed the concept of plasticity in developmental programming and evidence for the role of epigenetic mechanisms. It became widely accepted as a leading reference on this topic with currently >750 citations in Google Scholar.Comment: Ze’ev Hochberg had a brilliant, creative mind. ...