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Number of children emerging as cardiovascular risk factor for both parents.

Number of children is emerging as a novel factor that influences the risk for some cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and in some societies in both parents, according to Expert.
A study of 0.5 million people found a statistically significant J-shaped relationship between number of children and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. "It means that the risk decreases with one child, then increases with two or more children," she said. "In the AF study, a J-shaped relationship was not statistically significant, but this may be because it was in around 34,000 women and relatively small in comparison with the Chinese study."
"There is evidence that pregnancy leads to alterations that change the body's reaction to additional cardiovascular stressors," she said, "And this may happen by epigenetic mechanisms. But the findings in Chinese men favour the socioeconomic explanation."
A separate study in Circulation found that delivering a premature baby may be associated with later cardiovascular disease, regardless of other risk factors.4 Researchers reviewed data on 70 182 women in the Nurses' Health Study II and found that women who deliver a premature baby before 37 weeks gestation in their first birth have a 40% greater risk of later CVD compared to women who deliver at term, and those who deliver before 32 weeks are at twice the risk compared to full-term deliveries.
"The paper's weakness is that the only socioeconomic parameter it includes is parental education and we are not told if it is referring to the mother or father," expert added. "Again, socioeconomic mechanisms may be really important in this field."