Study: Obese Children, Teens Have the Arteries of 45-Year-Olds

Public health campaigns that try to get kids to exercise and eat healthier haven’t made much of a dent in the problem of childhood obesity, Dr. Raghuveer says; they also haven’t cut the rates of heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems that often go along with obesity.

“This study is another red flag to people out there who are managing these kids, and to parents especially,” says Dr. Raghuveer. “These kids not only have the risk factors—like high cholesterol and hypertension—but they also have damage to their arteries.”

That leaves parents and health-care professionals in charge of finding dietary and fitness solutions that work for individual children, she says. In some cases, it may even be necessary to use cholesterol-lowering statins and blood pressure medications. All the children in the study had some kind of abnormality such as elevated total cholesterol, LDL or bad cholesterol, or triglycerides.

“Some of these children may need [drugs] either because they’re not compliant to dietary changes or because they don’t respond,” says Dr. Raghuveer.

There’s been some controversy lately about the wisdom of prescribing statins to young children. In July 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics caused a firestorm when it revised its guidelines to say that statins were appropriate for use in some youngsters with high cholesterol. But most doctors agree that obese children with multiple risk factors might benefit.

Dr. Raghuveer’s hope is that CIMT might help doctors decide with greater precision which children might need extreme interventions, a scenario that interests Dr. De Ferranti as well.

“You can imagine in the future that someone would measure cholesterol and do one of these tests and decide, that is a child who might be right for statins,” says Dr. De Ferranti. “So we can treat the really high risk and focus on lifestyle issues for the rest of the children.”

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