Teenage parents at greater risk of heart disease
17 February 2009
Scientists have found that early parenthood can increase the chance of suffering from coronary heart disease (CHD) later in life in both men and women. Lifelong lower socioeconomic status, lower educational attainment and subsequent poorer lifetime health behaviours may be the pathway by which early parenthood is related to poorer CHD risk factors.
In a unique British birth cohort study, scientists from the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing looked at the long term health effects of early parenthood in both men and women born in 1946. The results were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Men as well as women who became parents as teenagers had higher levels of obesity, higher blood pressure and worse cholesterol levels at the age of 53 years compared with those who became parents for the first time at an older age.
This can be largely explained by poorer health behaviours and lower socioeconomic status of young mothers and fathers so the findings show that lifestyle factors, rather than the biological impact of pregnancy, explain the relationship between age at motherhood and CHD risk factors.
Lead researcher Dr Rebecca Hardy from the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing said:
“We expected to see both the biological effects of early pregnancy and the influence of poorer health behaviours in young mothers having an effect on later health but to see that men who became teenage parents also had poorer CHD risk factors was an important finding. It suggests that we need to consider the family as a whole and encourage lifestyle changes, such as a healthier diet and increased exercise to improve the risk of coronary heart disease.”
Original research paper: ‘Age at parenthood and coronary heart disease risk factors at age 53 years in men and women’ is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
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