Early weight gain may lead to hypertension

Babies who gain weight rapidly in the first months after birth may have an increased risk of developing high blood pressure as adults, British researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers have been trying to understand more of the causes of high blood pressure, also called hypertension. Low birth weights also have been associated with an increased risk for high blood pressure later in life.

The new study sought to determine if growth patterns in the first five years of life also were associated with a risk of high blood pressure in adulthood. The researchers tracked 679 young adults around age 25 in Britain.

They found that those who gained weight more rapidly in the first five months after birth and again from about age 2 to 5 were more likely to have high systolic blood pressure.

Immediate weight gain after birth also was linked to higher adult diastolic blood pressure, they found.

Systolic blood pressure is the pressure in the arteries while the heart contracts. Diastolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.

"When trying to understand why some people get high blood pressure in later life, we need to consider a life course approach that considers early life as well as adult life risk factors such as dietary salt and obesity," Yoav Ben-Shlomo of the University of Bristol in Britain, who led the study published in the journal Hypertension, said in a statement.

High blood pressure -- sometimes called the "silent killer" because it can go undetected for years -- raises a person's risk of heart disease and stroke.

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Hypertension

Hypertension causes atheroma formation and atherosclerosis.
A significant number of patients with angina
have hypertension: blood pressure greater than 140 or
pressures in the high normal range of 135–140 systolic
mmHg. Hypertension causes an increased thickness of the
left ventricular muscle, which requires more blood and
oxygen to function. Hypertension must be aggressively
controlled. The best antihypertensive agents for patients
with angina are beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors.
ACE inhibitors are particularly useful because they
dilate the arterial circulation and rest the myocardium
without stimulating the heart to beat at a faster rate or to
require more oxygen. Other vasodilators that include
1-
adrenergic blockers, such as terazosin, increase heart rate
and ejection velocity and are contraindicated in patients
with CAD. These agents may increase the incidence of
heart failure. A randomized clinical trial the HOPE study;
see the Bibliography indicates that ACE inhibitors improve
survival in patients with CAD.

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