Obese Kids Have Middle-Aged Arteries

Scientists have found accelerated evidence of heart disease among obese children and teens.

By JoNel Aleccia | MSNBC

Nov 12, 2008 | Updated: 3:43 p.m. ET Nov 12, 2008

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Geetha Raghuveer
Samuel Gidding
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

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A glimpse inside the neck arteries of obese children and teens reveals cardiovascular systems more like those of 45-year-olds, researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists using ultrasound imaging detected fatty deposits more typical in middle-aged adults than in children as young as 10, underscoring worries about accelerated risks of heart disease decades earlier than once thought possible.

"There's a saying that you're as old as your arteries," said the study's lead author, Dr. Geetha Raghuveer, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine. "These kids are showing up with arteries that show middle-aged conditions."

In fact, more than half of the 70 youngsters enrolled in the Children's Mercy Hospital study had a "vascular age" about 30 years older than their actual age, putting them at risk for early heart attacks, stroke — and death. The research was presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association's scientific meeting in New Orleans.

That finding might also hold true for many more young people in the United States, where more than 16 percent of kids ages 2 to 19 are considered obese, according to federal statistics.

"It kind of hammers home that the risk might be speeded up," said Dr. Stephen Daniels, chief pediatrician at the Children's Hospital in Denver, who was not associated with the new study. "It does kind of fit with the concept that kids with high cholesterol and other risk factors probably have premature aging factors."

This isn't the first time aging arteries have been documented in kids. Previous studies have reported that growing numbers of children with risk factors for heart disease are showing signs of narrowing and hardening of the arteries, conditions typically associated with adults.

But Raghuveer and her colleagues used ultrasound imaging to measure the thickness of the inner walls of the carotid arteries that supply blood to the brain. Increasing carotid artery intima-media thickness, or CIMT, indicates a build-up of fatty deposits, known as plaque, in crucial arteries to the heart and brain. Plaque build-up in the arteries, which is usually affects adults, can restrict the flow of blood, causing heart attacks or stroke.

Then they plotted the measurements on a graph for adult plaque levels — because similar measures don't exist for kids.

The small study included children ages 6 to 19, but most were ages 10 to 18 and the average age was 13, Raghuveer said.

The children's average CIMT was .45 millimeters, with a maximum of .75 millimeters. One 12-year-old boy logged a CIMT of .54, which placed him smack in the middle of measurements expected to be seen in a healthy 45-year-old man — .50 millimeters to .57 millimeters.

"If I see a kid with a .54 plaque in his carotid artery, a 12-year-old kid, I'm going to be concerned," Raghuveer said.

Member Comments

Posted By: Qidisrupt @ 11/23/2008 11:28:56 PM

Exercise alone is not sufficient for good health...a person can look "in shape" and yet still be throwing down unhealthy food in the pie hole. Look at some of the foods we as Americans eat on a daily basis...and we wonder why our bodies do not respond well? I am going to school for holistic nursing...I have been interested in the energy systems of the body and how these systems need to be kept fine-tuned to keep the organs of our bodies healthy. How we eat is a lot like how we fuel our vehicles. We would not think of putting a cup of muck in our fuel tank or the vehicle would not run and incur damage...the same goes for how we treat our bodies with foods we eat...if we put crap food into our bodies, we will not function properly and will incur damage. Notice, I did not say MAY incur damage...this is a definite. The strange thing is, we tend to treat our vehicles better than we treat our own bodies...this does not make sense. Exercise WITH a consistent healthy diet will yeild good results. Taijiquan and/or Qigong exercises are excellent for energy exercises for our bodies.
Posted By: TalkSoup @ 11/13/2008 6:55:55 PM

Let you're kids go outside and play. Less TV, Less video games.

More runnig, jumping, climbing...

Do we really need a study to tell us that excersize is better than being lazy?
Posted By: TheVigil @ 11/13/2008 9:55:34 AM

I still can't believe that just about everyone has accepted BMI as an effective personal diagnostic tool.

Body Mass Index was NEVER intended to be a diagnostic tool, EVER! It is a STATISTICAL measure used to describe populations, not individuals. All it does is compare height to weight and then compare that to the rest of the human population. It will tend to completely misdiagnose athletes, weightlifters, and anyone else who puts on a degree of muscle tone, because muscle *weighs more than fat*.

I've lifted weights with a fair degree of regularity since I was about fifteen. I work out about an hour a day or so. The government considers me to be medically obese, however, due to the muscle tone I've put on over years of weight workouts. I get some fairly surprised reactions when I mention this to other people.

I'm not saying obesity isn't a major American problem, but when I see a Harvard-trained doctor make a diagnosis of someone they've never met based almost completely on BMI (I saw this in a men's magazine recently), it makes me think that scientific illiteracy is also a major American problem. I don't know what excuses people with advanced degrees to have such a poor understanding of the difference between diagnostic and statistical measures.