Fetal nutrition and cardiovascular disease in adult life

Walker ARP, Walker BR

1993

South Africa

The authors underline that in African countries low birth weight is twice as common as in Western populations. 15% or more infants lie below the 5th centile of growth. Nevertheless these conditions seem to inhibit subsequent cardiovascular disease. In black South African adults coronary heart disease is absent in rural dwellers and remains rare in urban dwellers despite the fact that a quarter have raised cholesterol concentrations, over half the men smoke, and hypertension frequency is higher than in the white population

These cross cultural comparisons may be included in the framework of primal health research. See the many studies exploring adult diseases in relation to birth weight.