Parental cardiovascular risk factors track into offspring's adult life, with offspring 2-3 times more likely to have obesity, high cholesterol, or hypertension if parents have extreme risk levels.
Cross-Sectional (n=56,569)
Do cardiovascular risk factors track across generations and persist into adult life?
Cardiovascular risk factors, including obesity, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia, track significantly from parents to their adult offspring.
Effect estimate: Coefficient 0.29 (95% CI 0.27 to 0.32)
BACKGROUND: Parent-offspring studies have shown that cardiovascular risk factors cluster within families. However, most studies have assessed the offspring cardiovascular risk factor level at a young age, and whether an association persists into the offspring's adult life is less clear. This study linked information between parents and their adult offspring to investigate the intergenerational association of anthropometric measures, blood pressure, blood lipid levels and physical activity. METHODS: The study population consisted of parent and adult offspring pairs (11,931 fathers-sons, 12,563 fathers-daughters, 15,626 mothers-sons and 16,449 mothers-daughters) who participated in the second and third cross-sectional waves of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT 2, 1995-1997 and HUNT 3, 2006-2008). A general linear model and logistic regression were used to estimate the association between the parent and offspring risk factor levels. RESULTS: All continuously measured cardiovascular risk factors under study showed a statistically significant positive association between parents and offspring, except the waist-hip ratio. Adjusted coefficients from linear regression ranged from 0.09 (95% CI 0.07 to 0.11) for waist circumference to 0.29 (95% CI 0.27 to 0.32) for body weight. Moreover, offspring were two to three times more likely to be obese, have a high cholesterol level, or hypertension when comparing extreme categories of the corresponding parental risk factor level. Physically active parents had a lower risk of having physically inactive offspring. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that cardiovascular risk factors track across generations and persist into the offspring's adult life.
Vik et al. (Thu,) conducted a cross-sectional in Cardiovascular risk factors (n=56,569). Parental cardiovascular risk factors was evaluated on Intergenerational association of anthropometric measures, blood pressure, blood lipid levels and physical activity (Coefficient 0.29, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.32). Parental cardiovascular risk factors track into offspring's adult life, with offspring 2-3 times more likely to have obesity, high cholesterol, or hypertension if parents have extreme risk levels.