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From the Journals

Infant Gut Microbiota Tied to Childhood Blood Pressure

A 1-unit increase in infant gut microbiota diversity at 1 month was associated with a 1.86 mm Hg lower systolic BP at 6 years—only in children breastfed for at least 6 months.

Conexiant

A new study has found that infant gut microbiota diversity and composition may influence childhood blood pressure, with breastfeeding duration modifying these associations.

In the study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, investigators analyzed data from the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC2010), which followed 526 children from infancy to 6 years of age. Infant gut microbiota was measured at 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year; while blood pressure (BP) assessments were conducted at ages 3 and 6 years.

The investigators found that higher gut microbial diversity at 1 month was linked to lower systolic BP at 6 years, but only in children breastfed for at least 6 months. A 1-unit increase in the Shannon diversity index at 1 month was associated with a 1.86 mmHg lower systolic BP, whereas the same increase corresponded to a 0.73 mmHg higher BP in children breastfed for less than 6 months (P-interaction = .02).

Additionally, two Bifidobacterium species at 1 week were linked to lower systolic BP at 6 years, but only in children who were breastfed. Conversely, higher levels of Helicobacter pylori at 1 week were associated with increased BP at 3 years, adding to growing evidence that gut bacteria may influence cardiovascular risk factors from infancy.

Beyond microbial diversity, eight bacterial species at 1 week or 1 month were significantly associated with BP at 3 or 6 years, with five of these relationships independent of the child's body mass index (BMI). The investigators also demonstrated that gut microbial composition, measured using UniFrac distances, correlated with BP across multiple time points.

"Gut microbiota features at 1 week and 1 month of life were associated with BP at 6 years. Breastfeeding duration modified key associations including those for α diversity and Bifidobacteria," said lead study author Tiange Liu, PhD, MBBS, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and colleagues.

With childhood hypertension rates increasing globally, the investigators suggested that future studies should explore metagenomic and metabolomic analyses to better understand microbial metabolites and pathways linked to cardiovascular health.

Full disclosures are available in the published study.