Turacoz Insights

Cardiovascular diseases increasing in Teenagers: Wakeup call on World Heart Day, 29 Sep 2014

Just one day prior to the “World Heart Day”, a school survey conducted from 25 public and private schools in Delhi and NCR region including 3000 students has come out with alarming figures:

• 10% of school children between 13-16 years of age are overweight.
• 35% increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the obese children
• Average age of patients with heart diseases is showing a decline from 50 years to 20 years
• Higher risk of 38% Risk of CVD is highest (38%) in obese young adults with risk factors and lowest (8%) in those with normal weight and no risk factors.
  

Preventive steps to be taken by the parents and school are to help and motivate the child to adopt a healthy lifestyle:

• Diet modifications: less of fast/packaged foods , less sugar and trans-fat and consuming nutritious healthy home cooked foods
• Improving the physical activity by including a compulsory exercise or sports regimen
• Educating parents, children and involving schools in this movement.

In a cross sectional study conducted on 854 high school children, 81% of children were found to have insufficient physical activity with daily consumption of soup, salad or vegetables, and fruit, respectively to be as, 37%, 39% and 21%.

The risk factors in this population were:

• Overweight-16%
• Smoking-13%
• Hypertension-11%
• Impaired glucose metabolism-9%
• Hypertriglyceridemia - 9%
• Hypercholesterolemia - 5%

Poor physical activity, hypertension and overweight were more prevalent in males (p<0.001) whereas females had higher levels of cholesterol (p<0.005) and triglycerides (p<0.001).

Epidemic of childhood obesity becoming prevalent now is an important contributing factor for CVD and mortality in adults now. Many epidemiologic studies have observed that obesity has an impact on the cardiac autonomic modulation which can cause sympathetic overflow and reduced parasympathetic modulation. There is enough evidence to state that life style modifications including diet and physical activity can improve the CAM in the obese and reduce the burden of CVD in the adults.

As parents and healthcare professionals, this should act as an eye opener and we should turn back to basics with healthy home cooked foods, playing physically and restriction of TV, computers and sedentary activities.

Sources:

1. Press release: Overweight kids in Delhi-NCR are more prone to cardiovascular diseases: ASSOCHAM. Available at http://assocham.org/prels/shownews.php?id=4705
2. Rocha T et al. Cardiovascular risk profile of high school students: A cross-sectional study.Rev Port Cardiol. 2014 Sep 12. pii: S0870-2551(14)00182-6.
3. Liao D et al. Childhood obesity and autonomic dysfunction: risk for cardiac morbidity and mortality.Curr Treat Options Cardiovasc Med. 2014 Oct;16(10):342.