Resumen

PEREZ CABALLERO, Manuel Delfin; VALDES ARMENTEROS, Reina; TASIS HERNANDEZ, Manuel  y  CORDIES JACKSON, Liliam. Low birth weight and its relation to arterial hypertension in adolescents and youth. Rev cubana med [online]. 2004, vol.43, n.5-6, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-302X.

It has been proved that low birth weight is related to the development of arterial hypertension in the adult. This relation has not been consistently found at early ages of life.This fact led to the conduction of this research paper. 223 adolescents and young individuals that were born at "América Arias" Ginecoobstetric Hospital, in Havana City, from 1980 to 1985, were studied. They were selected from the hospital birth records with the mothers' addresses in the municipality of Centro Habana. The selection was made in such a way that per every low birth weight infant ( 2 500 g), due to intrauterine growth retardation, 2 infants born on the same day with normal weight were selected. 73 subjects that were low birth weight and 153 that were born with normal weight were surveyed and examined.. Blood pressure was measured on 3 occasions according to the requirements established by the National Hypertension Program, and the data were processed by using the necessary statistical calculations. It was observed that the adolescents and young subjects that were born with low weigth presented average blood pressures higher in 5.86, 5.54 and 3.76 mmHg of sytolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure, respectively, than the similar subjects studied as control group that were born with normal weight (p .005). In the studied group (low birth weight), it was found 10.9 % of hypertensives, whereas in the control group only 6.5 % were considered as hypertensives. Although this result was not statistically significant, the appearance of arterial hypertension in adolescence and youth meant a RR = 1.75. It was evidenced that the low birth weight resulting from intrauterine growth retardation should be taken into account as a possible risk factor for suffering from arterial hypertension in adulthood.

Palabras clave : Arterial hypertension; low birth weight; adolescence; risk factors.