Can Barker's Hypothesis Explain the Observed Different Trends of Mortality from Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease in Western Europe?

There are many hypothesis to explain the relationships between some factors in an earlier time and diseases in later time like salt hypothesis. The effects of early life conditions and diseases in later life have been studied in several studies. Little experience exists on the possible impact of early life circumstances on trends in mortality from atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases within national populations. We performed a time series analysis with special attention to cohort patterns. We studied mortality trends from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke in relation to infant mortality rate (IMR) in birth cohorts born between 1860 and 1939 in seven low‐mortality European countries, observing a general cohort‐wise decline in mortality from stroke in all countries and in both sexes, compared with an epidemic pattern of change for IHD. While the trends in IHD mortality were not strongly correlated with the IMR in subsequent cohorts, strong and positive correlations were observed for stroke. The factors that explain the different trends for IHD in comparison with stroke are not fully understood but may be related to a relatively greater impact of smoking and serum cholesterol on IHD Department of Public Health, Social Health Determinants Research Center, School of Health, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekrod, Iran, 1Department of Pediatrics, Child Growth and Development Research Center, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, 2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Social Health Determinants Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekrod, Iran