Heart disease risk linked to 1919 swine flu

U.S. researchers found that men born in the first few months of 1919 — whose mothers would have been in the second or third trimester of pregnancy at the height of the 1918 flu epidemic — had a 23.1 percent greater chance of having heart disease after the age of 60 than the overall population.

There was no significant increase in the likelihood of heart disease later in life in women born in the first few months of 1919, pointing to possible gender differences in effects of flu exposure in utero.

However women born in the second quarter of 1919, whose mothers would have been in the first few months of pregnancy at the height of the epidemic, were 17 percent more likely to have heart disease than the general population in later life.

The study looked at 100,000 people born during and around the time of the 1918 flu pandemic in the United States, and was published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

“Our point is that during pregnancy, even mild sickness from flu could affect development with longer consequences,” said Caleb Finch, a professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California and a senior author of the study.

“There is particular concern for the current swine flu which seems to target pregnant women,” said Finch.

Figures show that pregnant women account for six percent of confirmed deaths from the new strain of swine flu, while making up only one percent of the population.

U.S. health authorities have included pregnant women on a list of high-risk groups who would be first in line to be inoculated against the new strain of A(H1N1) flu, when vaccine becomes available this month.

The study also found that men who were exposed in utero to the 1918 H1N1 strain were shorter than their peers born months before or after the pandemic.

When the researchers looked at the heights of 2.7 million men born between 1915 and 1922 when they enrolled to fight in World War II, they found that average height increased every year -- except for the period that coincided with prenatal exposure to the 1918 flu virus.

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