Suboptimal Birthweight and Adult Cardiometabolic Disease: The HPA-Axis Link |Biomedgrid

Suboptimal birthweight (<10th percentile, >90th percentile) has a well-established relationship with several adult cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity, dyslipidaemia and elevated Blood Pressure (BP) [1]. Over the past three decades, several animal studies have investigated this relationship. Together, these studies have shown that in sub-optimally grown offspring, adaptive changes occur in key organ systems to maximize chances of ex-utero survival [2]. Unfortunately however, these early life adaptations to organ structure and function render suboptimally grown offspring vulnerable to chronic disease later in life [3]. This concept is known as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DoHAD) hypothesis, and provides the broad mechanistic framework underpinning the relationship between adverse early life exposures and chronic disease in adulthood [2]. The hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA-A) plays a key role in cardiometabolic homeostasis by regulating tissue exposure to endogenous glucocorticoids [4]. Several animal studies have shown that the axis is highly susceptible to adaptive change in response to adverse early-life exposures [5].