IVF children may have a higher risk of hypertension

A new study suggests that children born through in vitro fertilization are more likely to develop high blood pressure.

According to a report from the American College of Cardiology, researchers found higher average blood pressure in IVF-born adolescents than in naturally-conceived children.

In addition, adolescents born with IVF were more likely to have high blood pressure to be diagnosed with hypertension.

Researchers advise parents of children conceived with IVF to focus on other risk factors for heart disease.

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"Eliminate additional cardiovascular risk factors, such as being overweight, sedentary and smoking," suggests Dr. Urs Scherrer, co-author of the University of Bern, Switzerland. In addition, he recommends taking a 24-hour blood pressure when children are between 16 and 20 years old.

Scherrer and his colleagues compared 54 IVF-designed teens with 43 of their naturally-designed friends. The average age of teenagers was 17 years old.

In adults, blood pressure above 120/80 is considered high. But in children and adolescents, normal blood pressure depends on age and size. If a child has blood pressure higher than 90% to 95% of other men or women, then his age and height may have high blood pressure.

On average, IVF adolescents had higher blood pressure than their friends (119/71 versus 115/69). Eight IVF adolescents were diagnosed with hypertension, compared to one in the control group.

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Five years earlier, the researchers had checked the blood pressure in both groups and found no difference between IVF adolescents and their friends. "Until adolescence, there are no cardiovascular problems," Scherrer said via email.

The conditions in which IVF embryos develop can play a role, he says.

"There are many conditions that are not physiological during the in vitro period – temperature, mechanical insults related to the manipulation of embryos, suboptimal culture media, etc. – which the embryo needs for survive (and these) have changed the regulation of the gene (expression), "said Scherrer.

Although the new findings are very interesting, the study is limited, said Dr. Alan Penzias, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and fertility specialist at the Boston IVF.

The results of small studies are not always generalizable to the entire population, Penzias said via e-mail.

And although researchers have been able to mitigate a number of possible confounding factors by using the friends of IVF children as controls – the control group was probably the best for the socio-economic context, for example – they were not eliminating of infertility, said Penzias.

"Is the discovery in this article due to the IVF procedure or is it due to sterility itself," Penzias asked.

Penzias cites a large study done in 2012 in the New England Journal of Medicine that revealed a higher risk of birth defects in infants born to couples with a history of infertility, that babies were conceived naturally or by IVF.

Penzias nonetheless said that it was prudent to follow the results of a medical intervention. Deciphering the mechanisms of the disease to facilitate the design of treatments that improve the human condition is a valid and universally approved mission.