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Obese Children Found To Have Old Arteries

I have pointed out in other posts that in the U.S. we have an obesity epidemic. And it is occurring in our
children as well. As we sit playing video games and watching TV we are lacking in good old physical exercise.
Now doctors are seeing a correlation between obesity and heart disease as suggested by the following.

“It is clear that obesity is a risk factor for the development of premature cardiovascular disease in youth,”
reports Dr. Catherine McNeal, an associate professor of internal medicine and an assistant professor of
pediatrics at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

According to one scoring measure, obesity in male adolescents is a greater risk factor for
cardiovascular disease than smoking, McNeal noted.

The following is some more scary info.

Researchers at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine and Children’s Mercy Hospital
used ultrasound to measure the thickness of the inner walls of the carotid arteries, located in the
neck, in 70 high-risk children aged 6 to 19.

The average age of participants was 13, most were white, and about half were male. Fifty-seven
percent had a body-mass index (BMI) above the 95th percentile for their age.

On average, participants’ “vascular age,” meaning the age at which this level of thickening would be
normal, was three decades older than their chronological age.

The researchers point out that this is not a definitive study since it only had a test group  of 70.
To me it seems that any group of children taken at random should not be overweight and should most
definitely not have ‘old areteries’.

Is it possible that this generation of youth will be the first generation to not outlive their parents?

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Lower Your Cholesterol, Obesity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Obese Children Found To Have Old Arteries”

  1. Did you know that over 30% of USA families are run by single parenting households? We all know that single parenting is a difficult job. However, children residing in single parenting homes usually have it more difficult because they are deprived of the full time guidance and direction of two parents, which is so essential for their moral, spiritual and character growth.

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