The influence of fetal growth restriction on cardiovascular health among adolescents in Brazil: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether fetal growth restriction is associated with changes in cardiovascular risk factors later in life. DESIGN A retrospective cohort study. SETTING Tertiary-care hospital serving urban population from the Brazilian Northeast. PARTICIPANTS/PATIENTS 172 adolescents aged 10-20 years were evaluated for the effects of fetal growth restriction on anthropometric measurements, blood pressure, lipids and fasting glucose and flow-mediated brachial artery dilatation. INTERVENTION The adolescents' birth weight and their gestational age at birth were used to identify fetal growth restriction according to the 10th percentile and divided between exposed (<10th percentile) and not exposed (≥10th percentile). The Student-t test or the Mann-Whitney test and chi-square were used. The significance level was considered to be 0.05. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Current Anthropometric, metabolic and endothelial measures of subjects. RESULTS The majority of the current anthropometric, metabolic and endothelial measures did not differ between groups. The unexposed group had a higher hip circumference (89.1 cm) and higher total cholesterol (196.4mg/dL) than those exposed (85.4 cm, 136.9mg/dL, respectively) (P=0.04). CONCLUSIONS In the sample studied, no association was found between fetal growth restriction and changes in cardiovascular risk factors in adolescents.