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 Researchers examined data on 1,277 mother-child pairs from the U.K.,
France, Spain, Lithuania, Norway, and Greece to see how exposures to
outdoor factors like air pollution and weather, chemicals like
pesticides and metals, and lifestyle factors like diet and exercise
impacted blood pressure in kids age 6 to 11 years old. The study
team focused on a total of 89 exposures in the womb and 128
exposures during early childhood.
"Our results show that, starting in the fetal stage, where we live,
the food we eat, the air we breathe and the chemical compounds that
reach our bodies can affect blood pressure before adolescence," said
Charline Warembourg, lead author of the study and a researcher at
the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
"This is important because evidence shows that children with high
blood pressure are more likely to be hypertensive as adults,"
Warembourg said by email.
Exposure to negative lifestyle factors in pregnancy, such as
obesity, physical inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol and tobacco
consumption have long been established as heart disease risk factors
for mothers, researchers note in the Journal of the American College
of Cardiology.
In the current study, researchers analyzed data from blood and urine
tests of young children to see what environmental, chemical and
lifestyle factors might be associated with higher or lower blood
pressure.
Overall, about one in 10 kids had high blood pressure or slightly
elevated test results that suggested they were at risk for
developing it.
Kids whose mothers lived in a walkable environment with access to
green spaces, shops, restaurants and public transportation during
pregnancy were more likely to have normal blood pressure than those
whose mothers who lived outside cities or in communities where
walking wasn't possible.
It's possible that mothers in walkable areas got more exercise
during pregnancy, contributing to lower blood pressure for their
offspring, the study team concludes.
Exposure to higher temperatures during the time of blood pressure
checks was also associated with lower blood pressure in kids.
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When kids had prenatal exposure to higher bisphenol-A (BPA)
concentrations - a chemical once found in baby bottles and many
other plastic products - they had higher blood pressure than
children without this exposure in the womb. Children's own exposure
to copper and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) - a chemical found in
cosmetics, cleaners and clothes - were also associated with higher
childhood blood pressure.
Eating too little fish, or too much, were both associated with
higher blood pressure in kids, the study also found. While the
omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are beneficial for overall
cardiovascular health, fish contaminated by chemicals or metals
could reduce any positive effects of omega-3 fatty acids, the study
team notes.
Beyond its small size, other limitations of the study include the
potential for children's blood pressure to have been influenced by
factors beyond those examined.
"There is overwhelming and widely known evidence showing that
alcohol and smoking during pregnancy adversely affect the fetus, and
there is growing evidence that manmade chemicals during pregnancy
also may have effects on children," said Andrea Baccarelli, author
of an accompanying editorial and an environmental health researcher
at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York
City.
"It is safe to say that being mindful of the high variety of manmade
chemicals that can be found in food, plastic, personal care
products, etc. is important during pregnancy," Baccarelli said by
email. "However, it is also important to say that this study doesn't
show that these chemicals lead to disease, though the difference in
blood pressure found here may be predictive of disease later in
life."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2jX04EI and https://bit.ly/2k4gtHG Journal of
the American College of Cardiology, online September 2, 2019.
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