Birth Weight may predict shorter lifespan
By Danell Swim
March 25, 2008
How much people weigh when they’re born may influence how long they live, according to new research.Low birth weight may confer an increased risk of dying early as an adult, but extra-heavy babies may also face a greater risk, according to the largest study ever to look at birth weight and mortality.
“More infants than ever before are being born with these high birth weights,” Dr. Jennifer Baker, of the Centre for Health and Society in Copenhagen, Denmark, said in an interview.
“Further research is really needed to determine what may happen to these children when they grow up,” she added.
Past research has linked small size at birth to a raised risk of heart disease and diabetes, while people who were very large babies seem to have a heightened risk of obesity and cancer.
But studies of birth rate and mortality risk have had mixed results, and no one study has looked at more than 29 birth years in a row.
Baker and her team looked at 216,464 men and women born during a span of 44 years (1936-79). They compared birth weight with risk of death from any cause from age 25 to 68.
They found that men and women who weighed between 2,000 and 2,750 grams at birth (4.4 to six pounds) were at 17 per cent greater risk of death during the study’s followup period than people with birth weights between 3,251 and 3,750 grams (7.1 to 8.3 pounds).
Weighing in at 4,251 to 5,500 grams (9.4 to 12.1 pounds) at birth increased deaths during the followup period by seven per cent.
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