Cardiac disease outcomes and risk factors in 2003–5 by famine exposure category in 1944–5
| Hospital controls*, mean (SD), or % | Sibling controls*, mean (SD), or % | Famine exposed*, mean (SD), or % | p Value† | |
| Prevalent CAD‡ | 22 (6%) | 19 (6%) | 29 (7%) | 0.79 |
| Framingham risk %§ for men | 12 (8,16) | 10 (8,16) | 10 (8,16) | 0.30 |
| Framingham risk %§ for women | 2 (1,4) | 2 (1,4) | 3 (1,5) | 0.08 |
| Major ECG abnormalities | 24 (8%) | 30 (10%) | 37 (10%) | 0.59 |
| Minor ECG abnormalities¶ | 92 (31%) | 75 (24%) | 108 (31%) | 0.10 |
| LVH** (CV) (μv) | 1289 (494) | 1198 (550) | 1299 (531) | 0.03 |
| LVH** (elevated CV) | 5 (2%) | 3 (1%) | 8 (2%) | 0.43 |
| LVM** (g) | 161 (29) | 158 (28) | 164 (28) | 0.02 |
| Resting heart rate | 64.3±10.2 | 63.6±10.3 | 65.2±10.6 | 0.11 |
| QT index†† | 101.3±4.9 | 101.2±4.5 | 101.3±4.4 | 0.98 |
| RMSD | 24.9±16.6 | 27.3±20.3 | 24.1±17.2 | 0.08 |
| SDNN | 24.3±23.2 | 26.4±27.8 | 28.5±25.9 | 0.02 |
| Minor T-wave abnormality | 17 (6%) | 23 (7%) | 36 (10%) | 0.10 |
| QRS/T frontal plane angle (degrees) | 23.6±23.2 | 26.4±27.8 | 28.5±25.9 | 0.06 |
↵* Hospital controls: born in the same institutions, but before the famine or after the famine and not exposed to famine during gestation. Sibling controls: same-sex sibling without prenatal famine exposure. Famine exposed: at some time in pregnancy.
↵† Comparing the three exposure categories by analysis of variance or χ2 test, as appropriate.
↵‡ Coronary artery disease (CAD) defined as a hospital confirmed history of myocardial infarction, a history of angioplasty or bypass surgery, CAD-positive symptoms using the Rose questionnaire, or specific ECG Q-wave abnormalities on study examination.
↵§ Framingham-based 10 year risk estimate for ‘hard coronary heart disease (CHD)’ (myocardial infarction and CHD death from gender-specific rating of age, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and smoking status. Values denote median (25th percentile, 75th percentile). Differences in Framingham risk by exposure category compared by Kruskal–Wallis rank test.
↵¶ Excluding participants diagnosed with major abnormality.
↵** Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and left ventricular mass (LVM) as defined by Prineas et al 25 and by Rautaharju et al 26 All measurements in μV, except LVM (g). Elevated Cornell voltage (CV) defined as 2800 μV or greater in men and 2200 μV or greater in women.
↵†† QT Index = QT duration/656*(resting heart rate + 100).
RMSD, root mean squares SD of successive NN interval differences; SDNN, SD of eligible NN intervals over all recorded ECGs.