People who were exposed in the womb to the swine flu virus that caused the deadly pandemic of 1918 were more likely to develop heart disease later in life, said a US study to be released Thursday.
US 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.
US health authorities have included pregnant women on a list of high-risk groups who would be first in line to be innoculated 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.
The 1918 flu outbreak began in the spring, died out in the summer and then returned in the autumn of that year in an "unprecedentedly virulent" form, the study said.
Two percent of the US population died after contracting flu in 1918, although most people experienced only mild fever and recovered fully.
The current A(H1N1) outbreak also began in the spring, but continued throughout the summer. It has been relatively mild in severity, claiming nearly 4,000 lives around the world since the World Health Organization first reported an outbreak of the virus in Mexico in April.
The 1918 pandemic killed between 20 and 50 million people around the globe.
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AFP 301704 GMT 09 09
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