Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 161, Issue 11, Pages 1074-1080Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwi137
Keywords
birth weight; cohort studies; infant; mortality; risk; weight gain
Categories
Funding
- Medical Research Council [MC_U147574213, U.1475.00.002.00001.01(74213)] Funding Source: Medline
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Low birth weight, a marker of adverse intrauterine circumstances, is known to be associated with a range of disease outcomes in later life, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis. However, it may also decrease the risk of other common conditions, most notably neoplastic disease. The authors describe the associations between birth weight, infant weight gain, and a range of mortality outcomes in the Hertfordshire Cohort. This study included 37,615 men and women born in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, in 1911-1939; 7,916 had died by the end of 1999. For men, lower birth weight was associated with increased risk of mortality from circulatory disease (hazard ratio per standard deviation decrease in birth weight = 1.08, 95% confidence interval: 1.04, 1.11) and from accidental falls but with decreased risk of mortality from cancer (hazard ratio per standard deviation decrease in birth weight = 0.94, 95% confidence interval: 0.90, 0.98). For women, lower birth weight was associated with a significantly (p < 0.05) increased risk of mortality from circulatory and musculoskeletal disease, pneumonia, injury, and diabetes. Overall, a one-standard-deviation increase in birth weight reduced all-cause mortality risk by age 75 years by 0.86% for both men and women.
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