The age at menarche and several menstrual symptoms were reported by 516 Portuguese school girls who took part in a cross-sectional anthropometric study in Coimbra, Portugal. The mean ages of menarche calculated using the recall method and also using probit analysis were 12.53 +/-1.27 and 12.03 +/- 1.26 years, respectively. Parents'educational level, place of residence and size of the family did not have any significant effect on the mean age at menarche in this sample of adolescents. The order of birth was the only variable that indicated a significative effect: the first borns reported a lower mean age at menarche (12.34 years) than the later borns (12.6 years). In this sample, 47% of the girls had a cycle length of >or = 29 days, 23.4% had irregular cycles, 59% reported that the duration of bleeding was 3-5 days and the majority, 49%, did not report any pain during the bleeding days. However, 14.3% and 24.45% reported severe and medium pain. The age at menarche has declined from 15.0 (girls born in 1880-1890) to 12.03 (girls born in 1970-1980) years in the Portuguese population. This decrease in age, and also the lack of influence of the family characteristics, appear as a result of the great improvements in the social and economic living conditions that occurred in Portugal, especially after the 1970s. These improvements are mainly related to better nutrition and better health care along with many other environmental factors.

No abstract

The Three Oral Tori in the Coimbra population (Portugal) at the beginning of the XXth century A.D. The remarkable anthropological series formed by E. Tamagnini at the Universidade de Coimbra consists of the exhumed human remains from "La Conchada" cemetery, in Coimbra (Northern Portugal). From this collection, only those individuals coming from the different districts of Coimbra, where they also lived and died, were selected for study. The resulting series was made of by 483 individuals: 234 women and 249 men. The personal data sheets indicate that these people died between 1910 and 1938; their professions, age at death and its cause are also noted. They can be considered as a relatively homogeneous group of low socioeconomical level. The study of the three oral tori demonstrated the high frequencies of all of them, the absence of sexual dimorphism and only a few statistically significant differences between some of the age classes considered. The possible etiological factors (genetical and/or environmental) are also discussed.

Resumo O Programa Bolsa Família (PBF) é o principal programa de transferência de renda do Brasil e representa um incremento de renda nos domicílios, que alocam esses recursos entre diversas categorias de consumo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar em que medida o PBF alterou o valor do dispêndio em cada categoria e as parcelas de dispêndio. Foram utilizadas as Pesquisas de Orçamentos Familiares (POFs) de 2002-2003 e de 2008-2009 e os métodos Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Diferenças em Diferenças e Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR). Os resultados indicaram maior impacto do PBF sobre alimentação e habitação, tanto em termos absolutos como em relativos. Contudo, o efeito sobre alimentação foi surpreendentemente negativo, enquanto o impacto sobre habitação foi positivo. Foi possível concluir que destinar renda preferencialmente às mulheres não afeta o consumo de fumo. Além disso, nos domicílios em que as mulheres têm total autonomia para alocar a renda do PBF, o impacto do acréscimo da renda foi maior.