Early Life Predictors of Obesity and Hypertension Comorbidity at Midlife: Findings from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS)

Abstract

Background: Early life exposures can increase the risk of both obesity and hypertension in adulthood. In this paper we identify exposures across five pre-hypothesised childhood domains, explore them as predictors of obesity and hypertension comorbidity using the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS), and discuss these results in comparison to a similar approach using another birth cohort (the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)). Methods: The analytical sample included 9150 participants. The outcome was obesity (BMI of 30 or over) and hypertension (blood pressure>140/90mm Hg) comorbidity at age 44. Domains included: prenatal, antenatal, neonatal and birth, developmental attributes and behaviour, child education and academic ability, socioeconomic factors and parental and family environment. Stepwise backward elimination selected variables for inclusion for each domain, and predicted risk scores of obesity-hypertension for each cohort member within each domain were calculated. We performed multivariable logistic regression analysis including domain-specific risk scores, sex and ethnicity to assess how well the outcome could be predicted taking all domains into account. In additional analysis we included potential adult factors. Results: Including all domain-specific risk scores, sex, and ethnicity in the same prediction model the area under the curve was 0.70 (95%CI 0.67-0.72). The strongest domain predictor for obesity-hypertension comorbidity was for the socioeconomic factors domain (OR 1.28 95%CI 1.18-1.38), similar to the BCS70 results. However, the parental and family environment domain was not a significant predictor for obesity-hypertension comorbidity (OR 1.08 95%CI 0.94-1.24) unlike the BCS70 results. After considering adult predictors, robust associations remained to the socioeconomic, education and academic abilities, development and behaviour, and prenatal, antenatal, neonatal and birth domains. Conclusions: In the NCDS some early life course domains were found to be significant predictors of obesity-hypertension comorbidity, supporting previous findings. Shared early-life characteristics could have a role in predicting obesity-hypertension comorbidity, particularly for those who faced socioeconomic disadvantage.