The relationship of myocardial infarction to parental mortality and longevity

Adverse socioeconomic circumstances in childhood may confer a greater risk for adult cardiovascular disease (CVD). The purpose of this review is to systematically evaluate evidence for an association between socioeconomic circumstances during childhood and specific CVD subtypes, independent of adult socioeconomic conditions.

We systematically retrieved individual-level studies of morbidity and mortality from CVD and specific CVD subtypes linked to early life influences, including coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, peripheral vascular disease, markers of atherosclerosis (carotid intima-media thickness and stenosis), and rheumatic heart disease. Indicators of socioeconomic position in childhood varied, although most studies relied on father's occupation.

We located 40 studies (24 prospective, 11 case–control, and 5 cross-sectional) reported in 50 publications. Thirty-one studies (19 prospective, 7 case–control, and all 5 cross-sectional) found a robust inverse association between childhood circumstances and CVD risk, although findings sometimes varied among specific outcomes, socioeconomic measures, and sex. Case–control studies reported mixed results. The association was stronger for stroke and, in particular, hemorrhagic stroke, than for CHD. Childhood socioeconomic conditions remained important predictors of CVD, even in younger cohorts.

Childhood and adulthood socioeconomic circumstances are important determinants of CVD risk. The specific contribution of childhood and adulthood characteristics varies across different CVD subtypes. Disease-specific mechanisms are likely to explain the childhood origins of these adult health inequalities.

The present study examines the sex-specific patterns of mortality by birth order in four stages of the life-course, using Poisson and logistic regression analysis. The main question posed is whether there is any continuing social effect of birth order when (a) biological factors at birth, (b) other social factors at birth and (c) socio-economic circumstances in adulthood are adjusted for. The analyses are based on the Uppsala Birth Cohort Study consisting of all 14,192 boys and girls who were born alive at the Uppsala Academic Hospital in Sweden during the period 1915–29. The results showed that all-cause mortality differed according to birth order in all of the four studied age intervals when birth year, mother's age, birth weight, gestational age, diseases of mother, diseases of the infant, social class and mother's marital status at the time of childbirth were adjusted for. The general tendency was for laterborn siblings, particularly girls/women, to demonstrate a higher mortality risk than firstborn children. However, in the oldest age group (55–80 years) the previously significant association between birth order and male mortality became insignificant when adult socio-economic circumstances were controlled for. This indicates that the long-term influence of childhood birth order position on mortality is partly mediated by adult social class, education and income. The concluding section of the paper notes that laterborn children, and especially girls, were a disadvantaged group in early 20th century Sweden. Thus, for the subjects in the present study, the childhood social conditions linked to birth order position seem to have had consequences for these individuals’ health and survival that extend over the whole life-course.

How long can people live? Opinions of the researchers diverge and debates continue. Is there any systematic way to address this question? In this paper, we suggest an approach to the estimation of the biological limit of human longevity using survival data for twins from different zygocity groups. The approach is based on the genetic model of individual frailty. It combines ideas used in demography and survival analysis with methods of quantitative genetics and genetic epidemiology. The association between the life-spans of related individuals is described by the correlated frailty model of bivariate survival. A version of this model is used in order to estimate heritability of the individual frailty and to calculate the lower bound of human longevity. The limitations of this approach and directions of further research are discussed.

Family patterns for age at death were examined in a 40 year follow-up of 5209 men and women (2900 deceased, 2309 living) in the Framingham Study and their parents. Age at death of both mothers and fathers was significantly older for surviving offspring when compared to decreased offspring (p < 0.0001). When longevity was assessed according to cause of death in the offspring, parental age at death was a significant predictor of death by coronary heart disease (CHD), but not for stroke or cancer. Multiple regression analysis for offspring with sudden CHD death revealed that mother's age at death was a significant predictor of age at sudden CHD death (p < 0.0003) whereas father's age at death was a significant predictor of age at death in non-sudden CHD death (p < 0.004). Life table analysis showed longest survival rates associated with both parents surviving to age 75 or older followed by mother only surviving to age 75 or older, then father only, and shortest survival with neither parent surviving to age 75. Longevity appears to be more strongly associated with maternal death age than parental death age. Proportional hazards analysis of risk factors associated with CHD revealed that systolic blood pressure, sex of the individual, and cigarette smoking were the most significant predictors of death age. These findings suggest that familial similarities for death age may be mediated primarily through shared CHD risk factors within families, either genetic or non-genetic.

This chapter assesses and synthesizes research findings concerning the effects of child spacing on intelligence, interfamily relations, psychosocial characteristics, and health. It suggests strategic and theoretically significant areas for further investigation and encourages future research with the final goal of increasing our knowledge regarding personality and health. The effects of birth spacing is the least researched of sibling constellation variables, although several research groups have recently added interesting findings of spacing effects on intrafamily relations. The findings on spacing effects are astonishingly consistent. Close spacing is more disadvantageous to perinatal, infant, and childhood health and to longevity of adults. It seems deleterious to intelligence and achievement, to good relations between children and parents, between children and their siblings, and even between the parents themselves, and to emotion and psychological adjustment. With the consistency of findings of negative effects of spacing up to 24 months, and probably to 30 months, the chances seem high that similar effects will again appear, especially for boys but likely for girls too, and especially for verbal ability and morbidity and mortality, but also for many personality variables and psychosocial adjustment.

457 consecutive medical patients 40 yr and over were studied to determine whether longevity was inherited.

Pearson r, Kendall τ and t-tests showed positive correlations between age of parent at death and age of patient—the older the patient the more likely parents were older at death. This correlated at 0.295 Pearson r (p < 0.0002) for the son-father relationship and at 0.235 Pearson r (p < 0.008) for the son-mother relationship.

Such correlations could alter the variance in any given outcome study, which did not take into account parents' ages at death, by 5.3–8.7%. Such an oversight might be a deciding factor in establishing significance levels at the p < 0.05 level.