Childhood Obesity Increases Early Signs of Cardiovascular Disease

By as early as the age of 7, being obese may raise a child’s future risk of heart disease and stroke, even without the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, a new study found. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 91st annual meeting.
 
The study, conducted by researchers at Nemours Children’s Clinic and Charles DelGiorno, MD, an Endocrine trainee from the Mayo Clinic of Jacksonville, Fla., demonstrates that the unhealthy consequences of excess body fat start very early, said principal investigator and senior author Nelly Mauras, MD, chief of pediatric endocrinology at Nemours. Obesity alone, the study shows, is linked to certain abnormalities in the blood that can predispose individuals to developing cardiovascular disease early in adulthood.
 
“Our study finding suggests that we need more aggressive interventions for weight control in obese children, even those who do not have the comorbidities of the metabolic syndrome,” Mauras said.
 
Researchers wanted to know if simple obesity could raise cardiovascular disease risk before metabolic syndrome develops. They screened more than 300 individuals aged 7 to 18 and included just those without features of metabolic syndrome. They included 202 subjects in the study: 115 children who were obese and 87 children who were lean as controls—half were prepubertal and half in late puberty. Obese children had a body mass index above the 95th percentile for their sex, age, and height.
 
To be eligible to participate in the study, the children and adolescents had to have normal fasting blood sugar levels, normal blood pressure, and normal cholesterol and triglycerides. Lean controls also could not have a close relative with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or obesity. The latter group proved very difficult to find.
 
All study participants underwent blood testing for known markers for predicting the development of cardiovascular disease. These included elevated levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, and abnormally high fibrinogen, a clotting factor, among others. Obese children had a 10-fold higher C-reactive protein and significantly higher fibrinogen concentrations, compared with age- and sex-matched lean children, the authors reported. These abnormalities occurred in obese children as young as 7 year olds, long before the onset of puberty.
 
Source: Endocrine Society