Association of central obesity with unique cardiac remodelling in young adults born small for gestational age

Abstract

Aims: Being born small for gestational age (SGA, 10% of all births) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality in adulthood together with lower exercise tolerance, but mechanistic pathways are unclear. Central obesity is known to worsen cardiovascular outcomes, but it is uncertain how it affects the heart in adults born SGA. We aimed to assess whether central obesity makes young adults born SGA more susceptible to cardiac remodelling and dysfunction. Methods and results: A perinatal cohort from a tertiary university hospital in Spain of young adults (30-40 years) randomly selected, 80 born SGA (birth weight below 10th centile) and 75 with normal birth weight (controls) was recruited. We studied the associations between SGA and central obesity (measured via the hip-to-waist ratio and used as a continuous variable) and cardiac regional structure and function, assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance using statistical shape analysis. Both SGA and waist-to-hip were highly associated to cardiac shape (F = 3.94, P < 0.001; F = 5.18, P < 0.001 respectively) with a statistically significant interaction (F = 2.29, P = 0.02). While controls tend to increase left ventricular end-diastolic volumes, mass and stroke volume with increasing waist-to-hip ratio, young adults born SGA showed a unique response with inability to increase cardiac dimensions or mass resulting in reduced stroke volume and exercise capacity. Conclusion: SGA young adults show a unique cardiac adaptation to central obesity. These results support considering SGA as a risk factor that may benefit from preventive strategies to reduce cardiometabolic risk.