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

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 observed a strong relationship between cohort-trends in stroke mortality and cohort-trends in IMR in European low-mortality countries. The Barker’s hypothesis can explain well the trends of stroke mortality; however, it is not appropriate for IHD. It seems that for IHD, another hypothesis can explain much better. For instance, the ‘accumulation of risk’ model assumes that health at old ages is the result of exposures to risk factors not only in early life but also across lifetime, which could explain the IHD mortality trends