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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
Researchers who have followed 5,840 people from before birth to the age of 31 have found evidence suggesting that small size at birth and excessive weight gain during adolescence and young adulthood may lead to low grade inflammation, which, in turn, is associated with an increased risk of developing heart disease.
Previous epidemiological studies have linked environmental factors in early life with the risk of disease in adulthood, and this study identifies a possible causal mechanism.
"Low grade inflammation is important because it has been associated with future cardiovascular events in many population studies over the past few years and it may play a role in the development of cardiovascular disease," explained one of the authors, Paul Elliott, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine and head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London.
Prof Elliott and his colleagues found that when the Finnish participants in the study reached the age of 31, CRP levels were 16% higher per 1 kg lower birth weight, 21% higher per 10cms shorter length at birth, and 24% higher per 1 kg/m3 lower at birth (kg/m3 is known as ponderal index), after adjusting for potential confounding factors.
Dr Ioanna Tzoulaki, the first author of the study and Lecturer in Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, said: "We compared birth weight of children participating in the Finland 1966 Birth Cohort study with their CRP levels at age 31, and we found that those who had lower birth weight, have higher CRP levels when they are adults, and also the other way round -- people who had higher birth weight had lower CRP levels as adults.
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Posted on April 10, 2008 11:44 AM
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