*Flashback Friday*

*This post originally appeared on The PediaBlog on April  28, 2016.

 

Early Warning

 

 

We begin screening for high cholesterol at the 4-year-old checkup by asking parents (usually with the help of a questionnaire) whether or not they or their close relatives have been diagnosed with high cholesterol, are taking medications to treat high cholesterol, have a history of early heart disease (under the age of 55), or don’t know their family history. If any of these questions are answered in the affirmative, pediatricians might be compelled to check a child’s complete lipid profile with a blood test. Many pediatricians follow AAP guidelines and screen children for high cholesterol between 9-11 years old and again at 18 years old.

One questions parents often ask is: “Why do you screen for cholesterol so early in life?” Prior research has shown that atherosclerosis (“hardening of the arteries”), which is caused by the deposition of cholesterol and inflammation in the arteries supplying the heart, brain, and other vital organs, begins early in life. Maggie Fox says recent research examining the hearts of a small group of children indicates that damage to the heart muscle itself may also occur early:

Obese kids as young as 8 years old already have dangerous damage to their hearts, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Imaging scans of their hearts show a thickening of the muscle — a sign of strain that can lead to stroke, abnormal heart rhythm, heart failure and sudden death.

 

Fox reviews the methods, then sums up:

Linyuan Jing of the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, and colleagues compared 20 obese kids to 20 normal-weight kids, conducting a heart imaging scan called cardiac magnetic resonance.

“Obese children had 27 percent more muscle mass in the left ventricle of their hearts and 12 percent thicker heart muscles – both signs of heart disease – compared to normal weight children,” Geisinger said in a statement.

“This evidence of cardiac remodeling was present in obese children as young as age 8,” Jing and colleagues wrote in a summary of their findings, presented to a meeting of the American Heart Association.

“This implies that obese children even younger than 8 years old likely have signs of heart disease too,” Jing said.

“Ultimately we hope that the effects we see in the hearts of these children are reversible; however, it is possible that there could be permanent damage. This should be further motivation for parents to help children lead a healthy lifestyle,” Jing added.

 

Whether damage to the heart is reversible or not, it’s better to prevent overweight and obesity in the first place and avoid any damage to hearts whatsoever. Childhood overweight and obesity, especially in young children, is a very serious matter. An early warning. A red flag. We know that as one gets older, it gets harder to achieve normal body mass index (BMI) values. The consequences of having a high BMI are real threats to real people: our children — and not just when they become adults.

This is a big reason why pediatricians spend so much time measuring heights and weights, plotting points on growth charts, and monitoring growth in children at every annual checkup.

 

(Yahoo!Images)

 

source https://www.thepediablog.com/2023/04/28/flashback-friday-256/