Some Children On Fast Track
To Heart Disease
Lifestyle Choices
A Major Issue
An estimated one in
eight US schoolchildren has risk factors that could signal heart
disease in the years to come.
That is the sobering
conclusion of a study presented at the American Heart
Association's annual conference.
Researchers found about
13 percent of the schoolchildren studied have three or more
of the risk factors for what physicians call metabolic syndrome,
a precursor of cardiovascular disease.
Girls had a 1.6 times
higher risk than boys, says Dr. Joanne S. Harrell, a professor
of nursing and director of University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill's Center for Research on Chronic Illness.
Metabolic syndrome
includes risk factors such as high blood pressure, elevated
triglycerides (a fatty substance found in the blood), obesity,
and low levels of the so-called "good" HDL cholesterol. If someone
has metabolic syndrome, he or she is at early risk of heart
disease as well as at risk for diabetes.
If nothing is done,
Dr. Harrell says, there is a good chance the children could
develop both heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Researchers
Look at Lifestyle Behaviors
Her team followed
more than 3,200 students, about half boys and half girls between
the ages of eight and 17, in a rural North Carolina county
with no cities of more than 50,000 people.
The researchers decided
to study students in rural areas with high minority populations
because they knew such children have slightly higher obesity
rates, and that type 2 diabetes is more common in minorities.
They evaluated each
student's body mass index (BMI) - a ratio of weight to height
- to determine if it was high enough to be labeled obese, as
well as other risk factors such as blood pressure, blood fats,
and how well their body utilized glucose. A BMI of 30 and above
is considered obese; 25 and higher is overweight.
More than half of
the children had a least one of the six risk factors for metabolic
syndrome, 27 percent had two or more, and more than 13 percent
had three or more risk factors. Some children who had three
or more factors were only eight or nine years old.
The most common risk
factor, found in more than 43 percent of the children, was a
low HDL cholesterol level. More than one in four of the students
were classified as overweight.
In all, slightly more
than 16 percent of the girls and about 11 percent
of the boys had three or more risk factors for metabolic syndrome.
That was due, Dr. Harrell says, to the higher levels of excess
weight in the girls.
Experts
Point to Mounting Evidence
Dr. Henry C. McGill,
a senior scientist emeritus at the Southwest Biomedical Research
Institute in San Antonio, says, "There's no surprise in this
study. The evidence [of heart-disease risk factors in children]
just keeps piling up."
Recently, Dr. McGill
wrote an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, commenting on two other new studies linking
risk factors found in children that help predict heart problems
later.
One, the so-called
Bogalusa Heart Study, followed Louisiana children into young
adulthood and found high levels of the "bad" LDL cholesterol
was the best predictor later in life of a condition called increased
carotid artery thickness.
In the second study,
Finnish researchers followed more than 2,000 children and teens
and measured blood pressure, cholesterol, weight levels, and
smoking habits. They found if the subjects had several risk
factors earlier in life, they were at increased risk of hardening
of the arteries that can lead to heart problems later.
Dr. McGill says the
studies should definitely be a wake-up call for parents and
pediatricians.
"My message is, we
have got to start early to stop heart disease in middle age,"
Dr. McGill says.
"Start with smoking,"
he urges. "Get them to quit."
Then, work on the
weight.
"The epidemic of obesity
at all ages, especially in children, is a time bomb that will
soon explode to cause a renewal of the epidemic of coronary
heart disease and wipe out the gains of the last 30 years, during
which time the mortality rate of CHD [coronary heart disease]
has decreased by more than 50 percent," Dr. McGill says.
Always consult your
child's physician for more information.
Online
Resources
(Our Organization
is not responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
American
Academy of Pediatrics
American
Heart Association
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
National
Library of Medicine, at NIH
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January 2004
Some
Children On Fast Track To Heart Disease
Researchers
Look at Lifestyle Behaviors
Experts
Point to Mounting Evidence
Cholesterol
Testing for Children and Teens
Online
Resources
Cholesterol
Testing for Children and Teens
Cholesterol is a waxy
substance that can be found in all parts of your adolescent's
body. It aids in the production of cell membranes, some hormones,
and vitamin D.
The cholesterol in
blood comes from two sources: the foods your adolescent eats
and his/her liver. However, a child's liver makes all of the
cholesterol your adolescent's body needs.
Cholesterol and other
fats are transported through the blood stream in the form of
round particles called lipoproteins.
The two most commonly
known lipoproteins are low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and high-density
lipoproteins (HDL).
LDL cholesterol is
commonly called "bad" cholesterol. It can contribute to the
formation of plaque build up in the arteries, known as atherosclerosis.
HDL cholesterol is
known as "good" cholesterol, and is a type of fat in the blood
that helps to remove cholesterol from the blood, preventing
the fatty build up and formation of plaque.
The National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), recommends
that cholesterol testing begin at age two for any child
who has the following:
The NHLBI
also recommends that children and adolescents who have demonstrated
risk factors, such as obesity, should have cholesterol and other
lipids tested periodically by their physicians.
A full lipid profile
shows the actual levels of each type of fat in the blood: LDL,
HDL, triglycerides, and others.
Consult your adolescent's
physician regarding this test.
A cholesterol screening
is an overall look at, or profile of, the fats in the blood.
Physicians in the
past felt that children and adolescents were at little risk
for developing high cholesterol levels and other risk factors
for heart diseases affecting the coronary arteries and blood
vessels until later in life.
However, many physicians
now realize that children and adolescents are increasingly at
risk for having high blood cholesterol levels as a result of
one, or more of the following:
-
sedentary lifestyles (playing
video games, watching TV instead of participating in vigorous
exercise)
-
high-fat junk food and fast
food diets
-
-
family history of high cholesterol
levels
Children and adolescents
with high cholesterol are at higher risk for developing heart
disease as adults.
Many physicians are
recognizing that keeping blood cholesterol levels in normal
ranges throughout one's lifetime may be of great benefit in
reducing the likelihood of developing coronary artery disease
and high blood pressure.
Always consult your
child's physician for more information.
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