The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — Obese children as young as 10 have arteries as thick and stiff as 45-year-olds and other heart abnormalities that increase their risk of heart disease, say US and Australian researchers.
“As the old saying goes, you’re as old as your arteries are,” said Geetha Raghuveer of Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, who led one of the studies. “This is a wake-up call.”
The studies, reported at an American Heart Association conference on Tuesday, found about a third of American children were overweight and one-fifth were obese.
Many parents think “baby fat” will melt away as children get older. But research shows fat children become fat adults, with higher risks for many health problems.
Dr Raghuveer wanted to see if they could identify early signs of damage. She and colleagues used ultrasound to measure the thickness of the wall of a neck artery in 70 children aged 10 to 16. Almost all had abnormal cholesterol and many were obese.
No one knows how thick a 10-year-old’s artery should be as they are not regularly checked for heart disease, but they know they should not look like those of older and larger people.
Researchers used tables for 45-year-olds and found the children’s “vascular age” was about 30 years older than their real age.
A separate study tied childhood obesity to abnormal enlargement of the left atrium, one of the chambers of the heart. Enlargement is a known risk factor for heart disease, stroke and heart rhythm problems.
Julian Ayer, a researcher at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, did ultrasound exams on 991 children aged five to 15. He saw a clear link between rising weight and the size of the left atrium. A third study by Dr Walter Abhayaratna, from the Australian National University, found impairment in the heart’s ability to relax between beats in children who were overweight or obese.