Heart Disease Starts In Childhood

According to the article in Circulation, March 18 “Most US children start life with optimal cardiovascular health (CVH), but it declines substantially over time.

“Our findings indicate that, in general, children start with pretty good blood pressure. But if they have a horrible diet, it will drive a worsening body mass index (BMI) and cholesterol levels,” senior author Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, said in a news release. Dr Lloyd-Jones is professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. “The better we can equip our children to make healthy choices, the more cardiovascular health will be preserved into adulthood. And those who preserve their heart health into middle age live much longer and are much healthier while they live,” he added.

I remember a study where autopsies were done on Korean war dead. The finding, to the best of my memory, was that there was advanced cardiac atherosclerosis in most of them (most under the age of 21). When correlated with more modern times, a new study “shows that the rate of American service members with signs of coronary artery disease has declined sharply in the last half century, falling to roughly 1 in 10 military personnel today from about 8 in 10 during the Korean War. The findings came as a surprise to some researchers, who expected that the nationwide rise in obesity and Type 2 diabetes, including among young people, might have led to a similar trend in heart disease in the military. But instead it appears that national reductions in other risk factors for heart disease, like hypertension, smoking and high cholesterol, have had a greater effect on cardiovascular health.”

What is the lesson here. Start your children with a conscious focus on a proper, healthy diets. It may not be reversible if they eat poorly for years, so the best gift you can give your children is the gift of a good diet and hopefully a long life.