Twins confirm importance of fetal programming on adult blood pressure

On p 1330, Poulter et al seem to disprove the major criticism that confounding variables have produced a spurious inverse relation between birth weight and subsequent levels of blood pressure. They show a graded inverse relation between strata of within pair self reported birthweight differences and blood pressure differences between 492 adult twins. The association was independent of environmental parental confounding variables. Similar findings were apparent among the subgroup of monozygotic twins, thereby removing the likelihood of any genetic parental confounding. These findings are likely to result from retarded intrauterine growth due to placental dysfunction rather than inadequate maternal nutrition.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Association between birth weight and adult blood pressure in twins: historical cohort study

N R Poulter, C L Chang, A J MacGregor, H Snieder, and T D Spector
BMJ 1999 319: 1330-1333. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]