Can fetal alcohol exposure increase the risk of hypertension? A new study in children and adolescents diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder suggests it can.

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is increasingly recognized as being associated with a wide range of physical health problems, in addition to the well-defined neurocognitive difficulties that have been reported (Mattson et al., 2019). In line with other prenatal perturbations, including smoking, inadequate nutrition and exposure to stress, exposure of the fetus to alcohol during critical stages of development may contribute to 'developmental origins of health and disease' (DOHaD), as first proposed by Barker and colleagues (1995). DOHaD suggests that a suboptimal environment in early development may increase susceptibility to conditions such as hypertension, insulin resistance and obesity, which are risk factors for prevalent non-communicable chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes (Hanson and Gluckman, 2011). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.