Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T01:26:47.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Coronary heart disease: a disorder of growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2007

S. M. Robinson  and
D. J. P. Barker
S. M. Robinson
Affiliation:
MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK
D. J. P. Barker*
Affiliation:
MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK
*
*Corresponding author: Professor D. J. P. Barker, fax +44 2380 704021, email djpb@mrc.soton.ac.uk
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The search for the causes of CHD has been guided by a `destructive' model, which proposes that influences acting in adult life, such as smoking, obesity or high saturated fat intakes, lead to an acceleration of age-related destructive processes, including a rise in blood pressure and the formation of atheroma. One explanation for the failure of the model to account for, or indeed to prevent rising epidemics of CHD, is that individuals are heterogeneous in their responses to such influences. This heterogeneity in response is linked to different paths of early growth. The recent discovery that individuals who develop CHD grew differently from other individuals during fetal life and in childhood has led to a new `developmental' model for the disease. Reduced fetal growth followed by poor growth in infancy leads to an increased risk of development of CHD, and its associated conditions, stroke, hypertension and impaired glucose tolerance. These effects are compounded by accelerated weight gain, which may represent 'compensatory growth' in childhood.

Keywords

CHDFetal programmingFetal growthChildhood growth
Type
Meeting Report
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , November 2002 , pp. 537 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2002

References

Acheson, D (1998) Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health. London: H. M. Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Barker, DJP (1995) Fetal origins of coronary heart disease. British Medical Journal 311, 171–174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barker, DJP (1998) Mothers, Babies and Health in Later Life, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill LivingstoneGoogle Scholar
Barker, DJP, Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T & Osmond, C (2002) Fetal origins of adult disease: strength of effects and biological basis. International Journal of Epidemiology (In the Press).Google Scholar
Barker, DJP, Forsen, T, Uutela, A, Osmond, C & Eriksson, JG (2001) Size at birth and resilience to the effects of poor living conditions in adult life: longitudinal study. British Medical Journal 323, 1273–1276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, DJP, Hales, CN, Fall, CHD, Osmond, C, Phipps, K & Clark, PMS (1993) Type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia (syndrome X): relation to reduced fetal growth. Diabetologia 36, 62–67.Google Scholar
Barker, DJP, Osmond, C, Winter, PD, Margetts, B & Simmonds, SJ (1989) Weight in infancy and death from ischaemic heart disease. Lancet ii, 577–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, P & Martin, P (1999) Design for a Life: How Behaviour Develops. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Bavdekar, A, Chittaranjan, S, Fall, CHD, Bapat, S, Pandit, AN, Deshpande, V, Bhave, S, Kellingray, SD & Joglekar, C (1999) Insulin resistance syndrome in 8-year-old Indian children. Small at birth, big at 8 years, or both? Diabetes 48, 2422–2429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenner, BM & Chertow, GM (1994) Congenital oligonephropathy and the etiology of adult hypertension and progressive renal injury. American Journal of Kidney Diseases 23, 171–175.Google Scholar
Curhan, GC, Chertow, GM, Willett, WC, Spiegelman, D, Colditz, GA, Manson, JE, Speizer, FE & Stampfer, MJ (1996) Birth weight and adult hypertension and obesity in women. Circulation 94, 1310–1315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Desai, M & Hales, CN (1997) Role of fetal and infant growth in programming metabolism in later life. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 72, 329–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dietz, WH (1996) Early influences on body weight regulation. In Regulation of Body Weight: Biological and Behavioral Mechanisms,pp. 149–156 [Bouchard, C and Bray, GA, editors]. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Ebrahim, S & Davey Smith, G (1997) Systematic review of randomised controlled trials of multiple risk factor interventions for preventing coronary heart disease. British Medical Journal 314, 1666–1674.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, Osmond, C & Barker, DJP (2000) Fetal and childhood growth and hypertension in adult life. Hypertension 36, 790–794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, Osmond, C & Barker, DJP (2001) Early growth and coronary heart disease in later life: longitudinal study. British Medical Journal 322, 949–953.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, Winter, PD, Osmond, C & Barker, DJP (1999) Catch-up growth in childhood and death from coronary heart disease: longitudinal study. British Medical Journal 318, 427–431.Google Scholar
Forsen, T, Eriksson, JG, Tuomilehto, J, Osmond, C & Barker, DJP (1999) Growth in utero and during childhood among women who develop coronary heart disease: longitudinal study. British Medical Journal 319, 1403–1407.Google Scholar
Forsen, T, Eriksson, J, Tuomilehto, J, Reunanen, A, Osmond, C & Barker, D (2000) The fetal and childhood growth of persons who develop type 2 diabetes. Annals of Internal Medicine 133, 176–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frankel, S, Elwood, P, Sweetnam, P, Yarnell, J & Davey Smith, G (1996) Birthweight, body-mass index in middle age, and incident coronary heart disease. Lancet 348, 1478–1480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Godfrey, KM & Barker, DJP (2001) Fetal programming and adult health. Public Health Nutrition 4, 611–624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hales, CN, Barker, DJP, Clark, PMS, Cox, LJ, Fall, C, Osmond, C & Winter, PD (1991) Fetal and infant growth and impaired glucose tolerance at age 64. British Medical Journal 303, 1019–1022.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harding, JE (2001) The nutritional basis of the fetal origins of adult disease. International Journal of Epidemiology 30, 15–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hooper, L, Summerbell, CD, Higgins, JPT, Thompson, RL, Capps, NE, Davey Smith, G, Riemersma, RA & Ebrahim, S (2001) Dietary fat intake and prevention of cardiovascular disease: systematic review. British Medical Journal 322, 757–763.Google Scholar
Huxley, RR, Shiell, AW & Law, CM (2000) The role of size at birth and postnatal catch-up growth in determining systolic blood pressure: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Hypertension 18, 815–831.Google Scholar
Jackson, AA & Robinson, SM (2001) Dietary guidelines for pregnancy: a review of current evidence. Public Health Nutrition 4, 625–630.Google Scholar
Kuh, D & Ben-Shlomo, Y (1997) A Life-course Approach to Chronic Disease Epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwong, WY, Wild, A, Roberts, P, Willis, AC & Fleming, TP (2000) Maternal undernutrition during the preimplantation period of rat development causes blastocyst abnormalities and programming of postnatal hypertension. Development 127, 4195–4202.Google Scholar
Leon, D, Lithell, HO, Vagero, D, Koupilova, I, Mohsen, R, Berglund, L, Lithell, UB & McKeigue, P (1998) Reduced fetal growth rate and increased risk of death from ischaemic heart disease: cohort study of 15000 Swedish men and women born 1915-29. British Medical Journal 317, 241–245.Google Scholar
Lever, AF & Harrap, SB (1992) Essential hypertension: a disorder of growth with origins in childhood? Journal of Hypertension 10, 101–120.Google Scholar
Lithell, HO, McKeigue, PM, Berglund, L, Mohsen, R, Lithell, UB & Leon, DA (1996) Relation of size at birth to non-insulin dependent diabetes and insulin concentrations in men aged 50-60 years. British Medical Journal 312, 406–410.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Macintyre, K, Stewart, S, Chalmers, J, Pell, J, Finlayson, A, Boyd, J, Redpath, A, McMurray, J & Capewell, S (2001) Relation between socio-economic deprivation and death from a first myocardial infarction in Scotland: population based analysis. British Medical Journal 322, 1152–1153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marmot, M & McDowell, ME (1986) Mortality decline and widening social inequalities. Lancet ii, 274–276.Google Scholar
Marmot, M & Wilkinson, RG (2001) Psychosocial and material pathways in the relation between income and health: a response to Lynch et al. British Medical Journal 322, 1233–1236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marmot, MG, Shipley, MJ & Rose, G (1984) Inequalities in death - specific explanations of a general pattern? Lancet i, 1003–1006.Google Scholar
Merlet-Benichou, C, Leroy, B, Gilbert, T & Lelievre-Pegorier, M (1993) Retard de croissance intra-uterin et deficit en nephrons (Intrauterine growth retardation and inborn nephron deficit). M S-Medecine Sciences 9, 777–780.Google Scholar
Metcalfe, NB & Monaghan, P (2001) Compensation for a bad start: grow now, pay later? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16, 254–260.Google Scholar
Phillips, DIW, Walker, BR, Reynolds, RM, Flanaghan, DEH, Wood, PJ, Osmond, C, Barker, DJP & Whorwood, CB (2000) Low birth weight predicts elevated plasma cortisol concentrations in adults from 3 populations. Hypertension 35, 1301–1306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ravelli, ACJ, van der Meulen, JHP, Michels, RPJ, Osmond, C, Barker, DJP, Hales, CN & Bleker, OP (1998) Glucose tolerance in adults after prenatal exposure to famine. Lancet 351, 173–177.Google Scholar
Rich-Edwards, JW, Stampfer, MJ, Manson, JE, Rosner, B, Hankinson, SE, Colditz, GA, Willett, WC & Hennekens, CH (1997) Birth weight and risk of cardiovascular disease in a cohort of women followed up since 1976. British Medical Journal 315, 396–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, R (2001) The fetal origins of adult disease. British Medical Journal 322, 375–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stein, CE, Fall, CHD, Kumaran, K, Osmond, C, Cox, V & Barker, DJP (1996) Fetal growth and coronary heart disease in South India. Lancet 348, 1269–1273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
West-Eberhard, MJ (1989) Phenotypic plasticity and the origins of diversity. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20, 249–278Google Scholar
Widdowson, EM, Crabb, DE & Milner, RDG (1972) Cellular development of some human organs before birth. Archives of Disease in Childhood 47, 652–655.Google Scholar