Birth weight and blood pressure in adolescence studies may be misleading

BMJ 1994;308:1634 (18 June)

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Birth weight and blood pressure in adolescence studies may be misleading

EDITOR, - Jean W A Matthes and colleagues found that the bloodpressures of 165 adolescents who had had low birth weight wereno different from those of a similar number of controls andthey concluded that this does not support a link between retardedfetal growth and hypertension.¹ Their findings contrast witheight published studies in pre-adolescent children and fourin adults which show that birth weight is inversely relatedto blood pressure. Differences associated with birth weightare small in childhood but are progressively amplified throughlife.² Blood pressure is known to track from childhood throughinto adult life,³ but tracking is perturbed during the adolescentgrowth spurt.⁴ For this reason studies of adolescents are unlikelyto contribute importantly to our understanding of the long termeffects of fetal growth on blood pressure.

D J P Barker, C M Law

MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton SO9 4XY .

Matthes JWA, Lewis PA, Davies DP, Bethel JA. Relation between birth weight at term . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relation between birth weight at term and systolic blood pressure in adolescence: J W A Matthes, P A Lewis, D P Davies, and J A Bethel
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