PAS: Birth Weight Affects Blood Pressure in Adolescence

May 7, 2008

Infants with a lower birth weight have an increased risk of elevated systolic blood pressure in late adolescence and early adulthood, according to research from China presented this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies and Asian Society for Pediatric Research Joint Meeting in Honolulu.

WEDNESDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Infants with a lower birth weight have an increased risk of elevated systolic blood pressure in late adolescence and early adulthood, according to research from China presented this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies and Asian Society for Pediatric Research Joint Meeting in Honolulu.

Huirong Li, M.D., of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues conducted a re-cross-sectional study of 1,111 subjects aged 16 to 26, who had been enrolled in the Shanghai Infant Feed and Growth Survey between 1980 and 1990.

The researchers found that 5.3 percent of the subjects had hypertension, which they defined as a systolic blood pressure above 130 mm Hg and a diastolic blood pressure above 85 mm Hg. After adjusting for age, education, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and body mass index, they found that every kilogram decrease in birth weight was associated with a 2.39 mm Hg increase of systolic blood pressure in males and a 2.44 mm Hg increase in females. But they found no association between birth weight and diastolic blood pressure in either males or females.

"These data highlight the importance of prenatal growth in the prevention of evaluated blood pressure in China," the authors conclude.

Abstract #5855.7