THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARENTAL HISTORY OF VASCULAR DISEASE AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE RISK FACTORS IN CHILDREN: THE BOGALUSA HEART STUDY

Abstract

The relationship between parental history of vascular disease (heart attack, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension) and risk factor variables for cardiovascular disease was assessed in 3,312 offspring aged 5–17 years during the 1981–1982 school year in the biracial community of Bogalusa, Louisiana. Risk factors studied included systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, serum total cholesterol, triglycerides, and individual lipoprotein cholesterol (β-, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol; pre-β, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol; and α-, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol). Risk factors were adjusted for age, race, sex, and height (blood pressure only) prior to testing parental history effects. Univariate comparisons between risk factors in children and vascular disease in parents resulted in statistically significant increases in systolic and diastolic pressures associated with the presence of maternal or paternal hypertension (p < 0.001). Paternal heart attack was also associated with elevations in diastolic pressure (p < 0.01) of children. Maternal diabetes mellitus was associated with an increase in serum total cholesterol (p < 0.05). Paternal diabetes mellitus and maternal heart attack (for female progeny only) were associated with increases in mean triglyceride levels of children. VLDL cholesterol results were similar to those for triglycerides. For HDL cholesterol, paternal diabetes mellitus was associated with a small decrease in mean levels (p < 0.05). Dramatic increases to the highest decile of risk were found in association with the following parental disease combinations: paternal heart attack-paternal diabetes for serum total cholesterol (p < 0.0001), maternal heart attack-paternal diabetes (p < 0.001) and paternal stroke-maternal diabetes (p < 0.0001) for LDL cholesterol. Multivariate analysis detected no significant effects of single parental vascular disease. However, paternal heart attack in combination with either diabetes mellitus or hypertension was statistically significant in their relationship to the risk factors overall.