The impact of birth weight on cardiovascular disease risk in the Women's Health Initiative.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Traditional risk factors predict 75-80% of an individual's risk of incident CVD. However, the role of early life experiences in future disease risk is gaining attention. The Barker hypothesis proposes fetal origins of adult disease, with consistent evidence demonstrating the deleterious consequences of birth weight outside the normal range. In this study, we investigate the role of birth weight in CVD risk prediction.

Methods and results

The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) represents a large national cohort of post-menopausal women with 63,815 participants included in this analysis. Univariable proportional hazards regression analyses evaluated the association o

SUBMITTER: Smith CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4788544 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature