A design for investigating the association of birth weight, weight change during life course with adult hypertension in Hong Kong women

Abstract

"Fetal origins hypothesis" by Barker in 1990 is a well known hypothesis. One of the key finding was that low birth weight was associated with higher adult systolic blood pressure. However, in 2002, Huxley et al argued that birth weight had little relevance in determining blood pressure levels in later life. But after that, several studies argued against it until now. In addition, some experts think that change in size between birth and current rather than fetal biology itself affect the blood pressure, which means the fetal origins hypothesis must be weighed against a "postnatal origins hypothesis". Therefore, it is important to explore what is the interaction between later body weight change and fetal programming on the effect of BP ...