Since maternal height is a predictor of offspring birth size [ 33, 34] and fetal growth may influence pregnancy length, fetal growth could be an intermediate factor for the association of maternal height with gestational length.
Thus, further research is needed to examine the potential role of school performance as an intermediate factor for different risk factors of mental health problems and longitudinal effects of poor school performance.
ARF2 belongs to a TF family that binds to auxin-responsive elements (AuxREs) in the promoters of auxin-regulated genes, and acts as the intermediate factor for crosstalk between the primary signaling pathways of auxin and ABA [ 41].
While Dowdle et al. recently showed that NCOA4 appears to selectively recognize the FTH1 subunit of ferritin in vivo (Dowdle et al., 2014), it remains unclear whether the NCOA4-ferritin interaction occurs in a direct manner or requires intermediate factors for binding.
Iwamoto et al. [ 4] postulate an intermediate factor "X" for the delay between the accumulation of cycE and cycA during G1.
The intervention had a protective effect on sense of control, an important intermediate factor within our conceptual model for the relationship between exposure to HCS and change in diet and physical activity.
After adjusting for the 3 potential intermediate factors, the RR for vision impairment in men was attenuated, but in women it remained unchanged.
Weight loss studies included in this review follow this line with weight gain considered an intermediate risk factor for CVD with studies [ 27, 33, 34, 37, 39, 41, 52] modelling QALYs or DALYs based on, for example, the relative risk of cardiovascular (and other) disease when at a particular weight.
When adjusting for intermediate factors such as ER status and tumor size, this significant association remained (Table 2).
We evaluated the results of adjusting for intermediate factors that could lie on the causal pathway of the association between maternal height and pregnancy length or, alternatively; could be confounders.
In addition, collider stratification bias is possible after adjustment for intermediate factors, such as BMI, physical activity level, and smoking status, in the regression models; this is unlikely to have any significant effect, as these adjustments had a negligible effect on the results.
