Associations between Childhood Body Size, Composition, Blood Pressure and Adult Cardiac Structure: The Fels Longitudinal Study

Authors

Roy T. Sabo, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow
Miao-Shan Yen, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow
Stephen Daniels, University of Colorado at Aurora
Shumei S. Sun, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2014

Journal/Book/Conference Title

PLOS ONE

Volume

9

DOI of Original Publication

10.1371/journal.pone.0106333

Comments

Originally published at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0106333

Date of Submission

November 2014

Abstract

Objectives

To determine whether childhood body size, composition and blood pressure are associated with adult cardiac structure by estimating childhood “age of divergence.”

Methods

385 female and 312 male participants in the Fels Longitudinal Study had echocardiographic measurements of left ventricular mass, relative wall thickness, and interventricular septal thickness. Also available were anthropometric measurements of body mass index, waist circumference, percentage body fat, fat free mass, total body fat, and systolic and diastolic blood pressures, taken in both childhood and adulthood. The age of divergence is estimated as the lowest age at which childhood measurements are significantly different between patients with low and high measurements of adult cardiac structure.

Results

Childhood body mass index is significantly associated with adult left ventricular mass (indexed by height) in men and women (ages of divergence: 7.5 years and 11.5 years, respectively), and with adult interventricular septal thickness in boys (age of divergence: 9 years). Childhood waist circumference indexed by height is associated with left ventricular mass (indexed by height) in boys (age of divergence: 8 years). Cardiac structure was in general not associated with childhood body composition and blood pressure.

Conclusions

Though results are affected by adult body size, composition and blood pressure, some aspects of adult cardiac structure may have their genesis in childhood body size.

Rights

© 2014 Sabo et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Is Part Of

VCU Biostatistics Publications