The Impact of Early Life Stress on Growth and Cardiovascular Risk: A Possible Example for Autonomic Imprinting?

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Reiner Buchhorn1, Sebastian Meint1, Christian Willaschek1

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Caritas Krankenhaus, Bad Mergentheim, Germany.

Plos One
|November 19, 2016
PubMed

Insights

Children with short stature due to underlying conditions like heart failure or growth retardation show reduced heart rate variability (HRV). This autonomic dysfunction may increase their risk for future cardiovascular disease and attention deficit disorder.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Endocrinology
  • Autonomic Neuroscience
  • Developmental Pediatrics

Background:

  • Early life stress can have lifelong regulatory consequences.
  • Children with height below the third percentile experiencing early life stress may develop autonomic dysfunction.
  • Investigated heart rate variability (HRV) in children with short stature due to heart failure or intrauterine growth retardation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate heart rate variability (HRV) in children with short stature.
  • To determine the relationship between short stature, underlying causes, and autonomic function.
  • To assess the long-term health risks associated with autonomic dysfunction in this population.

Main Methods:

  • Compared HRV in 101 children with short stature to a healthy control group.
  • Analyzed HRV parameters such as RMSSD and High Frequency (HF)-Power.
  • Correlated HRV with specific conditions: small for gestational age (SGA), cardiac growth failure, congenital syndromes, and constitutional growth delay (CGD).

Main Results:

  • Children with short stature exhibited reduced HRV compared to controls.
  • Low HRV was associated with SGA, cardiac growth failure, and congenital syndromes, but not CGD.
  • Reduced HRV, indicated by lower RMSSD and HF-Power, suggests decreased vagal activity and autonomic imbalance.

Conclusions:

  • Reduced HRV in short children is linked to underlying diseases, not short stature itself.
  • Children with adverse autonomic imprinting (SGA, heart disease, congenital syndromes) face higher risks for future 'stress diseases' like cardiovascular disease.
  • A notably high incidence of attention deficit disorder was observed in the studied group of short children.
Abstract

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