TUESDAY, Oct. 19, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Maternal cholesterol during pregnancy (MCP) is associated with measures of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) severity as well as survival time in adult offspring with AMI, according to a study published online Oct. 18 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Francesco Cacciatore, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., from the University of Naples in Italy, and colleagues retrospectively assessed 310 patients admitted to the hospital with retrievable MCP data from when the mother had undergone prenatal examinations. Of these, 89 were AMI patients (47.0 ± 5.0 years) with typical chest pain, transmural infarction Q-waves, and elevated creatinine kinase (CK), and 221 were hospitalized for other reasons. The AMI patients were classified by severity of MI.
The researchers found that MCP was significantly correlated with four measures of AMI severity in the AMI cohort: number of vessels, ejection fraction, CK, and CK-MB (ß = 0.382, −0.315, 0.260, and 0.334, respectively); MCP also was significantly correlated with survival time (ß = −0.252). MCP predicted AMI severity independently of age, gender, body mass index, and coronary heart disease risk factors (odds ratio, 1.382) in a multivariable analysis of patients stratified by AMI severity. Survival was mainly impacted by severity of AMI.
"Our observations suggest that a mother's cholesterol level during pregnancy impacts the developmental programming of offspring and heart attack severity in adulthood," Cacciatore said in a statement. "However, the study does not establish causality, nor does it allow us to estimate how much maternal cholesterol may contribute to heart attack severity."
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