Gestational hypertension is a key contributor to illness and mortality in mothers, foetuses and newborns. Credit: didesign021/ iStock / Getty Images Plus
Five metabolites whose levels and activity in the blood are disrupted during pregnancy could be used for early detection of high blood pressure in expectant mothers. This discovery has the potential to protect the well-being of women and unborn children1.
Gestational hypertension (GH), high blood pressure that develops after 20 weeks of pregnancy, is a leading cause of illness and mortality in mothers, foetuses and newborns.
Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur collected blood from 119 pregnant women during each trimester at a hospital in Kolkata and analyzed its metabolic profile. None of the women had a history of high blood pressure.
The team found that ten metabolites — small molecules which are products of metabolism in a biological system at a given time — were significantly downregulated across all three trimesters in women who developed GH compared with expectant mothers with normal blood pressure.
The ten metabolites include various amino acids, carnitine (a nutrient that helps the body turn fat into energy), N-acetyl glycoprotein (a protein with sugar chains attached) and lactic acid.
Of these, reduced expression of the amino acids phenylalanine, histidine and proline, plus lactic acid and carnitine were most sensitive in differentiating between women with GH and those with normal blood pressure in the first three months of pregnancy.
The researchers say that more extensive research would validate these findings across different locations.
