Parent-offspring conflict and the persistence of pregnancy-induced hypertension in modern humans.

ABSTRACT: Preeclampsia is a major cause of perinatal mortality and disease affecting 5-10% of all pregnancies worldwide, but its etiology remains poorly understood despite considerable research effort. Parent-offspring conflict theory suggests that such hypertensive disorders of pregnancy may have evolved through the ability of fetal genes to increase maternal blood pressure as this enhances general nutrient supply. However, such mechanisms for inducing hypertension in pregnancy would need to incur sufficient offspring health benefits to compensate for the obvious risks for maternal and fetal health towards the end of pregnancy in order to explain why these disorders have not been removed by natural selection in our hunter-gatherer ancestors. We analyzed >750,000 live births in the Danish National P

SUBMITTER: Hollegaard B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3581540 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature