Objective: To determine whether integration of nutritional supplementation with other public health programmes in early life reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in undernourished populations.
Design: Approximately 15 years' follow-up of participants born within an earlier controlled, community trial of nutritional supplementation integrated with other public health programmes.
Setting: 29 villages (15 intervention, 14 control) near Hyderabad city, south India.
Participants: 1165 adolescents aged 13-18 years.
Intervention: Balanced protein-calorie supplementation (2.51 MJ, 20 g protein) offered daily to pregnant women and preschool children aged under 6 years, coupled with integrated delivery of vertical public health programmes.
Main outcome measures: Height, adiposity, blood pressures, lipids, insulin resistance (homoeostasis model assessment (HOMA) score), and arterial stiffness (augmentation index).
Results: The participants from the intervention villages were 14 mm (95% confidence interval 4 to 23; P=0.007) taller than controls but had similar body composition. The participants from the intervention villages had more favourable measures of insulin resistance and arterial stiffness: 20% (3% to 39%; P=0.02) lower HOMA score and 3.3% (1% to 5.7%; P=0.008) lower augmentation index. No strong evidence existed for differences in blood pressures and serum lipids.
Conclusions: In this undernourished population, integrated delivery of supplemental nutrition with other public health programmes in pregnancy and early childhood was associated with a more favourable profile of cardiovascular disease risk factors in adolescence. This pragmatic study provides the most robust evidence to date on this important hypothesis for which classic trials are unlikely. Improved maternal and child nutrition may have a role in reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease in low income and middle income countries.