Overweight - severe cardiovascular problems threaten at a young age

Cardiovascular disease due to obesity in adolescents

Anyone who is too fat as a teenager often has high blood pressure and a stressed heart even as a young adult. This is indicated by a study by scientists from the United Kingdom. The researchers therefore emphasize the importance of preventing overweight and obesity at an early age in order to prevent cardiovascular disease later in life.

Many children and adolescents are too fat

In Germany more and more obese people live. Many children and adolescents are far too fat. Health experts warn against underestimating the risks of being overweight. Obesity in children and adolescents can have dangerous health consequences, including increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life. It also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. This is indicated by a study by British researchers.

Anyone who weighs too much as a teenager, according to a new study has often as a young adult too high blood pressure and a loaded heart. (Image: kwanchaichaiudom / fotolia.com)

Dangerous effects in adulthood

Swedish researchers reported last year on a study that showed that overweight teenagers increase their stroke risk in adulthood.

And Israeli scientists found in a study that fat young people die earlier of cardiovascular disease.

A new study by the University of Bristol (UK) also shows how dangerous it can be when people weigh too much at an early age.

The results, published in the journal Circulation, suggest that teenagers who weigh too much often have high blood pressure and a stressed heart already as young adults.

Harbinger for later cardiovascular diseases

The Federal Center for Nutrition (BZfE) reports that the researchers at the University of Bristol evaluated data from more than 3,000 young volunteers at the age of 17 for their study.

Among other things, blood pressure, heart rate and body mass index (BMI) were determined as the ratio of weight to height, which is a measure of body weight.

At the age of 21, approximately 400 of the study participants used magnetic resonance imaging to determine the size of the heart and certain parameters of heart function.

It showed that teenagers who weighed too many pounds at the age of 17 had a higher blood pressure at the age of 21 years.

In addition, they tended to enlarge the left ventricle, which pumps the oxygen-rich blood into the body.

This indicates an organ damage of the muscle and is a harbinger for later cardiovascular diseases.

Prevent obesity at a young age

The BZfE points out that pure observational studies can not prove causal relationships.

But the scientists were able to substantiate the results with the help of genetic methods such as Mendelian randomization.

However, the heart rate of overweight teenagers did not increase.

This suggests that enlargement of the heart was solely due to the increase in stroke volume. The stroke volume is the amount of blood that the heart pumps into the body during a heartbeat.

According to the information, the carotid artery was not thickened, so obesity apparently initially only the heart burdened and atherosclerosis (arteriosclerosis) occurs only in old age.

British scientists emphasized the importance of overweight and obesity prevention in childhood and adolescence in preventing cardiovascular disease and other ill health later in life.

Above all, a healthy diet and more exercise are important, so that teenagers lose pounds. (Ad)