Obesity Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Obesity, including details on health, diet, prevention, exercise.

Cardiovascular risk factors in youth with implications for aging: the Bogalusa Heart Study.

Berenson GS, Srnivasan SR,

Tulane Center for Cardiovascular Health, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 1829, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA. berenson@tulane.edu

Evidence that cardiovascular (C-V) risk factors are identifiable in childhood and are predictive of future C-V risk is now irrefutable. That levels of C-V risk factors track or persist over time is important, since such phenomenon confers a life-long burden of C-V risk and indicates subtle and progressive changes in the C-V system. C-V risk factors occur often in constellation and central obesity and the attendant insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia underlie the comorbid conditions of dyslipidemia, hypertension, thrombosis, and inflammation, among others. Autopsy studies and non-invasive subclinical C-V imaging studies in youth clearly link the multiple risk factor burdens to adverse C-V system changes. The application of multiple risk factors profiling in young individuals in conjunction with non-invasive measurements of vascular changes can promote successful aging and encourage preventive cardiology beginning in early life.

Published 10 January 2005 in Neurobiol Aging, 26(3): 303-7.
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