How Preterm Birth Can Lead To Higher Blood Pressure In Adulthood

Premature birth cuts short kidney development — resulting in smaller kidneys and higher blood pressure in adulthood, according to a study presented Thursday at the American Heart Association’s Council on Hypertension 2016 Scientific Sessions.

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“Adults born preterm may not present with the ‘classic’ risk factors for heart disease, but they are at increased risk of hypertension and insulin resistance and certainly require regular medical follow-up,” said Anne Monique Nuyt, M.D., senior author of the study and head of the Division of Neonatology at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital and Research Center of the University of Montreal, Canada.

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Researchers compared kidney size, function and blood pressure in 40 adults born at 29 weeks of gestation or earlier to 40 adults born at full term. They found that young adults born preterm had:

• Significantly smaller kidneys relative to their body size.
• Significantly higher systolic (higher number) and diastolic (lower number) blood pressure, both on waking and averaged over 24 hours.

While the differences in blood pressure were not large — the average daily systolic blood pressure was 5 points higher in the adults born preterm (120 mm Hg) than those born full term (115 mm Hg) — the findings raise concerns about high blood pressure and heart disease risk as adults born preterm enter middle-age.

“It is well known that blood pressure will increase more markedly with aging in people who have higher blood pressures in their young adult lives than those who had lower values,” Nuyt said. “We do not know for certain whether this will be the case for individuals born preterm because the first survivors of extreme prematurity are only entering their 30s and 40s.”