Background: Low birth weight is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events in later life. Insulin resistance is a key finding in adult patients with cardiovascular diseases. The neonatal phenotype of an individual with insulin resistance might be low birth weight, as insulin influences fetal growth. The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system has been associated with cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance. We analyzed whether fetal polymorphisms of the angiotensinogen (AGT) and angiotensin-converting enzyme genes influence birth weight and/or fetal total glycated hemoglobin (fTGH), a surrogate parameter of fetal insulin resistance at birth.
Method: In 1132 white women delivering singletons, neonatal umbilical blood samples and clinical data of the mothers and newborns were obtained. Newborns were genotyped with respect to the AGT M235T and angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion polymorphism.
Results: The AGT M235T TT polymorphism is associated with reduced birth weight (TT: 3288 g versus TM + MM: 3435 g, P < 0.05). Furthermore, newborns with a high percentage of fTGH (>6.5%) are more likely to have the TT genotype than those with normal fTGH (<or=6.5%, P < 0.05). With higher cutoffs for fTGH, the significance increases to P less than 0.005. No association was seen between these parameters and the fetal angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion phenotype.
Conclusion: The fetal AGT M235T polymorphism is associated with low birth weight and elevated fetal fTGH at birth. Previous findings show that elevated fetal fTGH correlates with low birth weight and that higher activity of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system is an independent risk factor for the development of diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease. Therefore, our data are supportive of the fetal insulin hypothesis.