Bailey R C
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Ann Hum Biol. 1991 Mar-Apr;18(2):113-20. doi: 10.1080/03014469100001452.
Recent studies of African pygmies have concluded that the pattern of pygmy growth is similar to that of other Africans up to the time of puberty and that the short stature of adult pygmies is due primarily, if not solely, to the absence of accelerated adolescent growth. These conclusions are thought to be consistent with biochemical studies showing pygmies to have low levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). All previous pygmy-growth studies have been of subjects of estimated, not known age. This paper reports the results of a mixed longitudinal growth study of Efe pygmy children of known age from birth to age 5 years. The mean adult stature of Efe pygmies is the shortest of any human population known, including other pygmy populations of central Africa. At birth, Efe were significantly smaller than neighbouring Lese Sudanic-speaking farmers and other rural Africans. During the first 5 years of life, Efe not only remained shorter than Lese controls at all ages, but the difference in stature between them increased. Unlike the Lese, Efe children showed a trend of increasingly negative z scores compared with the American reference population, from -2.71 (SD = 0.93) at 6 months to -4.16 (SD = 0.46) at age 5 years. These results indicate that suppression of pygmy growth does not occur solely at puberty, but from birth onward. Furthermore, they suggest that conclusions concerning the lack of an adolescent pygmy growth spurt have been premature and must await studies of older pygmy sub-adults of known age.
最近对非洲俾格米人的研究得出结论，在青春期之前，俾格米人的生长模式与其他非洲人相似，成年俾格米人身材矮小主要（如果不是唯一的话）是由于青春期没有加速生长。这些结论被认为与生化研究结果一致，生化研究表明俾格米人的胰岛素样生长因子1（IGF-1）水平较低。此前所有关于俾格米人生长的研究对象年龄都是估算的，而非已知。本文报告了一项对从出生到5岁已知年龄的埃菲俾格米儿童进行的混合纵向生长研究结果。埃菲俾格米人的平均成年身高是已知所有人种中最矮的，包括非洲中部的其他俾格米人群体。出生时，埃菲人明显比讲苏丹语的邻近莱塞农民和其他非洲农村人口小。在生命的头5年里，埃菲人不仅在各个年龄段都比莱塞对照组矮，而且他们之间的身高差距还在增大。与莱塞人不同，与美国参考人群相比，埃菲儿童的z分数呈越来越负的趋势，从6个月时的-2.71（标准差=0.93）到5岁时的-4.16（标准差=0.46）。这些结果表明，俾格米人的生长抑制并非仅发生在青春期，而是从出生就开始了。此外，这表明关于俾格米青少年没有生长突增的结论下得过早，必须等待对已知年龄的年长俾格米亚成年人进行研究。
