Magazine Nature just published a study entitled "Birth of low weight, premature or both: is it relevant to the risk of hypertension in adulthood?". The conclusions obtained by the team of researchers from Stockholm (Sweden) have been in a different sense depending on whether they are premature or low-weight babies.
Low weight is a risk factor for hypertension in adulthood, according to an analysis of 250,000 birth records in Sweden from 1925 to 1949. This is due to poor fetal growth: those who were born small in relation to their gestational age increased the risk of hypertension up to 54%.
On the contrary, there is no relationship between gestational duration and hypertension in adulthood, since those born prematurely (but with a weight appropriate to their gestational age) did not present a higher risk of high blood pressure.
Port therefore, the conclusions are that, at least for those born in the first half of the twentieth century, although presumably the conditions have not changed at present, the association between low birth weight and adult hypertension is due to poor fetal growth and not to the preterm birth.
In the final study, all subjects born with a gestational duration below 35 weeks and / or a birth weight of 2 kilos in girls or 2,100 kilos in boys were included. In total, 6,269 subjects were analyzed, and their hypertension diagnoses were consulted from the Swedish Hispanic Registry from 1987 to 2006.
