Having good cardiorespiratory fitness is important for staying healthy and can reduce the risk of numerous diseases and premature death. Alarmingly, cardiorespiratory fitness is declining globally, both for youths and adults.
Researchers have found that babies born with low birth weights are more likely to have poor cardiorespiratory fitness later in life than their normal-weight peers.
Having good cardiorespiratory fitness is important for staying healthy and can reduce the risk of numerous diseases and premature death. Alarmingly, cardiorespiratory fitness is declining globally, both for youths and adults.
The study, published in the journal JAHA, showed that the proportion of Swedish adults with low cardiorespiratory fitness almost doubled from 27 per cent in 1995 to 46 per cent in 2017.
According to the researchers, the magnitude of the difference observed is alarming.
"The observed 7.9 watts increase for each 450 grams of extra weight at birth, in a baby born at 40 weeks, translates into approximately 1.34 increase in metabolic equivalent (MET) which has been associated with a 13 per cent difference in the risk of premature death and a 15 per cent difference in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease," said study researcher Daniel Berglind from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
"Such differences in mortality are similar to the effect of a seven-centimetre reduction in waist circumference," Berglind added.
According to the study, researchers have identified both physical inactivity and genetic factors as important determinants.
Linked to low cardiorespiratory fitness later in life.
Preterm delivery, and the low birth weight associated with it, has also been linked to low cardiorespiratory fitness later in life.
In this study, the researchers wanted to examine if low birth weights played a role in cardiorespiratory fitness in individuals born after a pregnancy of 37-41 weeks.
They followed more than 280,000 males from birth to military conscription at age 17-24 using Swedish population-based registers.
At conscription, the men underwent a physical examination that included an evaluation of their maximal aerobic performance on a bicycle ergometer.
The researchers found that those born with higher birth weights performed significantly better on the cardiorespiratory fitness test.
The researchers believe the findings are of significance to public health, seeing as about 15 per cent of babies born globally weigh less than 2.5 kilos at birth and as cardiorespiratory fitness have important implications for adult health.
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Birth Weight and Cardiorespiratory Fitness Among Young Men Born at Term: The Role of Genetic and Environmental Factors
https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.119.014290
Journal of the American Heart Association. 2020;9:e014290
Karolinska institute, Stockholm
Abstract
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.014290
Background
Preterm delivery and low birth weight are prospectively associated with low cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). However, whether birth weight, within the at‐term range, is associated with later CRF is largely unknown. Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine this issue and whether such association, if any, is explained by shared and/or nonshared familial factors.
Methods and Results
We conducted a prospective cohort study, including 286 761 young male adults and a subset of 52 544 siblings born at‐term. Objectively measured data were retrieved from total population registers. CRF was tested at conscription and defined as the maximal load obtained on a cycle ergometer. We used linear and nonlinear and fixed‐effects regression analyses to explore associations between birth weight and CRF. Higher birth weight, within the at‐term range, was strongly associated with increasing CRF in a linear fashion. Each SD increase in birth weight was associated with an increase of 7.9 (95% CI, 7.8–8.1) and 6.6 (95% CI; 5.9–7.3) Wmax in the total and sibling cohorts, respectively. The association did not vary with young adulthood body mass index.
Conclusions
Birth weight is strongly associated with increasing CRF in young adulthood among men born at‐term, across all categories of body mass index. This association appears to be mainly driven by factors that are not shared between siblings. Hence, CRF may to some extent be determined already in utero. Prevention of low birth weight, also within the at‐term‐range, can be a feasible mean of increasing adult CRF and health.
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https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/JAHA.119.014290