BIOTECH AND PHARMANEWS

Young Newlywed Couples Half Identical CV Risk Components

Young newlywed couples demonstrate striking concordance of cardiovascular risk components, including elevated blood stress (BP), cholesterol, and triglycerides, new analysis suggests.

Investigators studied over 800 newly married couples in China, assessing cardiovascular risk components equivalent to anthropomorphics, BP, and fasting lipids, and stumbled on significant correlations between spouses in systolic blood stress (SBP), diastolic blood stress (DBP), and triglycerides that persevered even after adjusting for an array of covariates.

“These findings in newly married spouses would possibly per chance per chance presumably objective strengthen the honour of couple-based entirely mostly care when a young adult is stumbled on to have a risk ingredient, or risk components, for the long bustle pattern of cardiovascular illness, equivalent to hypertension or dyslipidemia,” lead creator Ravi Retnakaran, MD, professor of medication, College of Toronto, Canada, told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology.

Their findings had been published online December 22 in JAMA Community Birth.

Unclear Affiliation

“We had been motivated by the indisputable fact that plenty of stories have proven that older married couples piece a propensity for accruing the the same cardiovascular risk components, equivalent to hypertension and dyslipidemia,” Retnakaran acknowledged.

“On the opposite hand, it has remained unclear if these spousal associations ponder their shared residence atmosphere/daily life or assortative mating — the tendency to pick a associate with identical perspective on daily life decisions or behaviors,” he acknowledged. “We thus hypothesized that one technique to addressing this question will most certainly be to retain in mind the spousal concordance of cardiovascular risk components in young, newly married couples, in whom the shared residence atmosphere/daily life has no longer but been established.”

To analyze the query, the researchers recruited couples attending a pre-marriage health clinic within the Liuyang space of Hunan Province (China) at the time of their marriage. They recruited females who indicated an blueprint to conceive internal the subsequent 6 months and invited their companions to rob part as successfully.

Each companions underwent a baseline evaluation at recruitment, which included size of weight, height, waist circumference, and BP, and fasting blood samples to retain in mind total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and triglycerides.

Women who conceived had been then adopted all over gestation to shipping, with remark focal level on folks that had preterm shipping, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia.

The final sample consisted of 831 couples.

Desk. Baseline Measures

Dimension Women Men
Point out (SD) age 24 (3) years 26 (4) years
Point out (SD) physique mass index (BMI) 20.2 (2.4) 22.0 (2.6)
Latest smoking 0.8% 42.7%

Despite the “marked difference” in smoking, the researchers stumbled on significant correlations between the spouses:

  • SBP (r = 0.43; P < .001)

  • DBP (r = 0.36; P < .001)

  • LDL cholesterol (r = 0.11; P = .003),

  • HDL cholesterol (r = 0.22; P < .001)

  • Triglycerides (r = 0.13; P = .001)

After adjustment for an array of covariates (age, household profits, education stage, smoking, and both BMI or waist circumference), plenty of significant correlations persevered between the spouses:

  • SBP (r = 0.42; P < .001)

  • DBP (r = 0.34; P < .001)

  • HDL cholesterol (r = 0.17; P < .001)

  • Triglycerides (r = 0.10; P = .04)

Among the 738 couples who went on to have a subsequent pregnancy, 45 women developed either gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or preterm delivery. Among these, the researchers found significant spousal associations of pregravid SBP and HDL cholesterol.

The associations “were not dependent on age, socioeconomics, smoking, or body habitus of either partner,” Retnakaran commented. “The spousal concordance of cardiovascular risk factors in young newly married couples is thus suggestive of assortative mating as a likely basis for the shared vascular risk factor profile that has been documented in older marital partners.”

“The concordance of blood pressure and lipids between newlywed partners in their twenties raises the possibility that the identification of a young person with an adverse cardiovascular risk factor profile may warrant the suggestion of their partner undergoing evaluation as well,” the authors comment.

They note that a “challenge” for such preventive care is “that young people rarely seek routine clinical surveillance,” and suggest that pregnancy may provide “a unique opportunity wherein young women typically engage with the healthcare system and may be particularly receptive to making healthy behavioral changes.”

Thus, they conclude, the study findings supporting the concept of assortative mating suggest that detecting at-risk women “may also provide an opportunity to identify their at-risk partners.”

Additionally, the findings “raise the possibility that family-based assessment may instead offer a broader opportunity for preventive care in both parents at an early age,” the authors write.

Family-Based Prevention Strategies

Commenting for theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology, Kaberi Dasgupta, MD, professor of medicine, Divisions of Internal Medicine, Epidemiology, and Endocrinology and Metabolism, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada, said, “This study in young adults provides a signal that individuals with similar cardiovascular profiles tend to become life partners.”

Dasgupta, who was not involved with the study, noted that there “remains a possibility that further concordance is shaped by years of living together — an aspect that is not the focus of the current study.” She and her colleagues have previously demonstrated spousal concordance for diabetes “and that gestational diabetes and gestational hypertension in mothers predict diabetes in both mothers and fathers over a decade.”

She added, “the overall body of work showing spousal concordance of cardiovascular risk factors provides strong justification for family-based disease prevention strategies.”

Also commenting for theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology, Samia Mora, MD, MHS, associate professor, Harvard Medical School, Boston Massachusetts, and a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said the new study’s findings are consistent with a prior large study that she and her colleagues conducted in the United States, also showing that within-couple concordance was common (>50%) for all of the American Coronary heart Affiliation (AHA) Lifestyles’s Straightforward Seven (LS7) components and for the cardiovascular health ranking.

“These stories imply that couple-based entirely mostly preventive health capabilities that focal level on each and every individuals of a pair would possibly per chance per chance presumably be how to scoot for public health initiatives, in remark for daily life interventions, whether in China or within the US,” acknowledged Mora.

This ogle became supported by operating grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Compare (CIHR) and the Natural Science Basis of China. Retnakaran holds the Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Beta-cell Preservation, Characteristic and Regeneration at Mount Sinai Clinic and his analysis program is supported by the Sun Lifestyles Monetary Program to Prevent Diabetes in Women. The Retnakaran and coauthors picture no relevant financial relationships. Mora has served as a specialist to Pfizer and Quest Diagnostics.

JAMA Netw Birth. Published online December 22, 2021. Full text

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