Low Birth Weight Infants Do Not Have Capillary Rarefaction at Birth: Implications for Early Life Influence on Microcirculation

Low birth weight predicts adult essential hypertension and is linked to increased cardiovascular mortality in adult life. A reduction in capillary density (ie, rarefaction) is a hallmark of essential hypertension, and evidence suggests that rarefaction precedes the onset of the rise in blood pressur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. 1979) Tex. 1979), 2011-11, Vol.58 (5), p.847-851
Main Authors: DʼSouza, Rohan, Raghuraman, Rajendra P, Nathan, Preetha, Manyonda, Isaac T, Antonios, Tarek F.T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age Factors
Angioscopy - methods
Arterial hypertension. Arterial hypotension
Biological and medical sciences
Birth Weight
Blood and lymphatic vessels
Blood Pressure Determination
Capillaries - physiopathology
Cardiology. Vascular system
Case-Control Studies
Clinical manifestations. Epidemiology. Investigative techniques. Etiology
Confidence Intervals
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Hypertension - etiology
Hypertension - physiopathology
Infant, Low Birth Weight
Infant, Newborn
Male
Medical sciences
Microcirculation - physiology
Multivariate Analysis
Pregnancy
Reference Values
Regression Analysis
Risk Assessment
Skin - blood supply
Term Birth
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Summary:Low birth weight predicts adult essential hypertension and is linked to increased cardiovascular mortality in adult life. A reduction in capillary density (ie, rarefaction) is a hallmark of essential hypertension, and evidence suggests that rarefaction precedes the onset of the rise in blood pressure, because it is found in normotensive individuals at high risk of developing hypertension, suggesting that rarefaction is likely to be a primary structural abnormality. We hypothesized that low birth weight infants would have significant capillary rarefaction at birth. We studied 44 low birth weight infants born to normotensive mothers (33 were born preterm, birth weight1823±446 g; and 11 were born at term, birth weight2339±177 g) and compared them with 71 infants born at term with normal weight (birth weight3333±519 g). We used orthogonal polarized spectroscopy to measure basal (ie, functional) and maximal (ie, structural) skin capillary densities. Low birth weight infants, whether born preterm or at term, had significantly higher functional capillary density (mean difference of 10.5 capillaries per millimeter squared; 95% CI6.6–14.4 capillaries per millimeter squared; P
ISSN:0194-911X
1524-4563
DOI:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.111.179226