ArticleJournal of human hypertension2023
Childhood and Infant exposure to famine in the Biafran war is associated with hypertension in later life: the Abia NCDS study.
Article in Journal of human hypertension, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Epidemiology of the Global Syndemic in Africa: New Evidence and Key Insights.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- The association between early-life famine exposure and hypertension risk in adulthood and its interaction with dietary inflammatory index among Chinese adults.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- From famine to NAFLD: long-term association between fetal famine exposure and adult non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Early-life nutrition supplementation and epigenetic age in middle-adulthood among Guatemalan adults.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cocoa Shell Extract Restores Redox Balance in Developmental Hypertension in Male Rats: Roles of Nrf2, SOD2 and p-eNOS.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2025Article
- Fetal exposure to famine increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood: findings from a population-based screening study.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Article
- Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life of Stroke Survivors in Southeast Communities in Nigeria.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
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14 authors at 6 institutions in 4 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There are very few studies in Africans investigating the association between early life exposure to malnutrition and subsequent hypertension in adulthood. We set out to investigate this potential association within an adult cohort who were born around the time of the Biafran War (1968-1970) and subsequent famine in Nigeria. This was a retrospective analysis of Abia State Non-Communicable Diseases and Cardiovascular Risk Factors (AS-NCD-CRF) Survey, a community-based, cross-sectional study that profiled 386 adults (47.4% men) of Igbo ethnicity born in the decade between January 1965 and December 1974. Based on their date of birth and the timing of the famine, participants were grouped according to their exposure to famine as children (Child-Fam) or in-utero fetus/infant (Fet-Inf-Fam) or no exposure (No-Fam). Binomial logit regression models were fitted to determine the association between famine exposure and hypertension in adulthood. Overall, 130 participants had hypertension (33.7%). Compared to the No-Fam group (24.4%), the prevalence of hypertension was significantly elevated in both the Child-Fam (43% - adjusted OR 2.47, 95% CI 1.14-5.36) and Fet-Inf-Fam (44.6% - adjusted OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.33-4.86) groups. The risk of hypertension in adulthood was highest among females within the Child-Fam group. However, within the Fet-Inf-Fam group males had a equivalently higher risk than females. These data suggest that early life exposure to famine and malnutrition in Africa is associated with a markedly increased risk of hypertension in adulthood; with sex-based differences evident. Thus, the importance of avoiding armed conflicts and food in-security in the region cannot be overstated. The legacy effects of the Biafran War clearly show the wider need for ongoing programs that support the nutritional needs of African mothers, infants and children as well as proactive surveillance programs for the early signs of hypertension in young Africans.
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