According to a new report published this week in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension, young children with malnutrition severe enough to warrant medical treatment may develop smaller heart structures and smaller blood vessels that produce increased blood pressure as they age.

The researchers who conducted the study in Jamaica found that malnutrition before birth and up to age five was significantly associated with higher blood pressure later.

“If nutritional needs are not met during this time, when structures of the body are highly susceptible to potentially irreversible change, it could have long-term consequences on heart anatomy and blood flow later in life,” said Terrence Forrester, study senior author and chief scientist, UWI Solutions for Developing Countries, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in Kingston, Jamaica, in a statement. “We are concerned that millions of people globally who suffer malnutrition before or after birth are at increased risk of hypertension in later life.”

The study was conducted on 116 Jamaican adults of a mean age of 29 who had a history of malnutrition during early childhood. The adults with malnourishment history were compared with 45 age-matched men and women with no history of malnutrition. Arterial blood pressures were recorded and found to differ between subjects with and without malnourishment history. The history of malnourishment was also found to be associated with anatomical differences in the heart and blood vessels through which blood leaves the heart.

The study results indicate that the key to preventing at least some adult hypertension may lie in addressing the more fundamental and widespread problem of childhood malnutrition.

“Such an investment in nutrition and general health will have huge public health dividends, including these longer-term risks of chronic heart and metabolic diseases that cost so much in human lives,” said Forrester.