Fat Kids Found to Have Arteries of 45-Year-Olds

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Fat kids found to have arteries of 45-year-olds

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer – 1 hr 46 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – Obese children as young as 10 had the arteries of 45-year-olds and other heart abnormalities that greatly raise their risk of heart disease, say doctors who used ultrasound tests to take a peek inside. "As the old saying goes, you're as old as your arteries are," said Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of Children's Hospital in Kansas City, who led one of the studies. "This is a wake-up call." The studies were reported Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference.

About a third of American children are overweight and one-fifth are obese. Many parents think that "baby fat" will melt away as kids get older. But research increasingly shows that fat kids become fat adults, with higher risks for many health problems.

"Obesity is not benign in children and adolescents," said Dr. Robert Eckel, a former heart association president and cardiologist at the University of Colorado-Denver. It is why the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended cholesterol-lowering drugs for some kids, he noted.

- snip -

No one knows how thick a 10-year-old's artery should be, since they're not regularly checked for signs of heart disease, so researchers used tables for 45-year-olds, who often do get such exams. The kids' "vascular age" was about 30 years older than their actual age, she found.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081111/ap_on_he_me/med_obese_kids_arteries

[curse of greyface]

1. Well how did that happen... where are those 45 year olds now? are they still alive?

And what kind of parent lets their kid play with body parts..... oh wait.... never-mind.

[wryter2000]

2. LOL

You beat me to it. I would have sworn they had my arteries, but I'm a heck of a lot older than 45.

[melody]

12. Yeah, I'm a fat woman and I'm 48

Golly, I think there's a problem with the theory. :eyes:

[endless october]

3. scary stuff.

i was obese once. never again.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. They must have a medication that will prevent this sort of thing

from happening to these children, statins, whatever.... this is unacceptable and someone should be looking into how to prevent the damage from occurring whether they are obese or not.

[Psephos]

16. The medicine is called "healthy lifestyle"

Not hard to do, and both emotionally and physically satisfying, but it's hard to cut through all the misinformation out there.

Our stone-age bodies are emphatically not suited to a life of ease and a table of rich plenty. Neither are our minds.

For anyone who wants a simple and reliable take on it, try this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Health-Secrets-Stone-Age-Second/dp/0975910205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226465276&sr=8-1

or this one:
http://www.amazon.com/RAVE-Diet-Lifestyle-Mike-Anderson/dp/0972659048/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226465276&sr=8-8

[Wabbajack_]

45. My body is not suited for " a life of ease"

[Psephos]

56. u and me both n/t

[ElsewheresDaughter]

31. HELLO...the big Phara thaT MAKES THE STATIN LIPATUR FUNDED THIS BOGUS STUDY TO SELL MORE STATINS!

fear fear fear sells!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

62. Actually, the underpinnings of heart disease do begin in childhood

on the other hand, a person can take plant based stanols and sterols to achieve similar results... (as lipitor)

[KurtNYC]

71. Didn't the most recent study show no benefit from Lipitor / Zocor?

In a study of people with heart disease, results show that high doses of the popular cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor may not prevent heart disease deaths and heart attacks -- and may cause muscle damage. -2004 European Society of Cardiology Congress

[HysteryDiagnosis]

76. Those Europeans... so snarky and telling the truth and all.... I

myself prefer what nature hath provided. I like the flavonoids, especially pycnogenol. I also take 3 to 4 hundred milligrams a day of coenzyme q10 with some L-Carnitine. Plant based sterols round out the mix along with some Mexican wild yam I almost forgot. I'm rather middle aged and work like I am in my twenties. Suits me fine.

[bulloney]

5. Gee! Why is that? All they're doing is sitting on their asses playing video games

and eating shitty foods while doing it.

Can't figure it out.

I've seen a lot of young children today. For these kids, getting up and picking something off the floor is stressful.

[Terry_M]

6. If they're Obese at 10....

It's not really their fault. It means things started going wrong a few years before 10, and really at 8 what sort of knowledge and self control did you have?
It all comes down to the parents at that age.

[Nevernose]

22. You can't even blame video games any more

The best selling game in the world right now is Wii Fit, which measures BMI and teaches you yoga and calisthenics and God knows what else. Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Sports, and many more in the future actually promote good physical health. I've actually broken a sweat playing video games with my kid, something I never thought would happen.

Like everything else, it goes back to parenting: the parents could buy games that are active and buy healthy foods -- it ain't the ten year olds buying the shitty foods, after all, and they're not the ones paying for 300 cable television channels, either.

[Marie26]

73. Plus, video games have been around for awhile

I grew up in the post-Nintendo generation, & kids spent a lot of time playing video games. But childhood obesity still wasn't nearly as prevalent then as it is now. Something else has changed.

[Codeine]

7. Fat kids = child abuse.

Feed them smaller portions and make them move. No excuse for kids to be fat -- none.

[ihavenobias]

9. I get very angry when I see parents taking obese kids to eat unhealthy, large portion foods

It IS child abuse.

And I have some perspective on this issue because I grew up a fat kid! And I don't mean chubby, I mean FAT. And I'll tell you, that experience makes it much harder (both physiologically and mentally) to lose and keep the weight off as an adult.

[melody]

11. People equating fat kids to child abuse = nonsense

I was a fat kid raised by thin parents. My father was a health-food eating, marathon runner. I'm a fat person
just like my great-grandmother was (I look just like her).

This hysteria is nothing more than the New "Prohibitionism" ... something for people to get all manic about that makes
certain they don't have to deal with their own lives.

[Marrah_G]

24. Thank you

I was adopted at birth.

I have ALWAYS had a weight problem. The rest of my family (my brothers are my parents biological children) are all fit and thin. They are athletic and weight was never an issue.

My parents always watched what I ate to the point of it being humiliating because for some reason I was always fighting the fat.

Television was rarely allowed. I played sports. Was always active. Sitting around was not an option. There was always yardwork to be done, chores to be done.

Still.....I was always the fat one. The embarrassment, though my parents tried to never let it show.

At age 33 I found my birth family.

Surprise surprise....My mother and younger sibling all have had a lifelong losing battle with weight.

My weight is not my parents fault.

[mattfromnossa]

42. Marrah_G

YOU have absolutely nothing to be embarassed about.

[AndyTiedye]

17. Doesn't Necessarily Work

Small portions just means they're hungry all the time and will wolf down any junk food they can find.

"Make them move" isn't as easy as it sounds, either.
Done the wrong way, you end with a kid who hates to exercise.
He will likely grow up into an adult who hates to exercise.

[Codeine]

18. Then why weren't there tons of fat kids when we were young?

You're just making cheap excuses for gluttony and laziness. Children should not be fat, barring the occasional - rare - medical condition. Mostly kids are fat because they are taught bad eating habits, given enormous portions, and not made to be active.

[Marrah_G]

25. You are a complete idiot.

[Codeine]

37. What a tremendously useful reply.

:hi:

Now try answering my question; why have children gotten so much fatter in the last few decades? Even as recently as my own childhood (80s) fat kids were unusual; now childhood obesity is epidemic. Weight gain is a function of one taking in more calories than one burns, so fatter kids means more calories and less activity.

[LanternWaste]

50. Overweight children were unusual in the 80's?

Overweight children were unusual in the 80's? :eyes:

Wow.

[LeftyMom]

57. Yep, they were.

A quick glance at my old class photos etc shows that (as I remembered) most classes had one, maybe two kids who were fat. And not obese either, just kinda chubby. Of course, that was the last pre-Nintendo generation and we all played outside.

[LanternWaste]

59. A glance at my Sr. yearbook (1984)

A glance at my Sr. yearbook (1984) has anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

But then again, instead of Nintendo, we played D&D-- which I imagine is just as healthy, or not... :)

[Quantess]

34. I agree with you.

Those three reasons at the end of the paragraph explain most of today's obesity epidemic among children.
The average girth of chilren has gone up about 5 sizes since the 1970s, in my estimation.

[JJ]

28. I have 4 children

3 of them are thin, and one borders on obese. We all have the same diet.
It's not always so simple.

[123infinity]

32. Exactly. Thank you.

...

[Beausoir]

41. Besides being a fatphobe, you obviously have NO conception of real child abuse.

Hope you haven't bred.

[Codeine]

43. Doubly wrong.

My girlfriend is significantly overweight, and I was abused as a child.

Obviously there are degrees of child abuse; not monitoring your child's weight doesn't rise to the level of physical abuse, but I contend that it is still abusive, destructive behavior that harms the child for life.

[LanternWaste]

52. Much like incivility I would imagine...

"...but I contend that it is still abusive, destructive behavior"

Much like incivility I would imagine...

[cliss]

8. I'm seeing a lot of fat kids lately.

I see hugely fat teenagers; both girls & boys. Many of them I've noticed are holding onto those really big Big Gulp soda pop cups as they drink out of a straw.

I see really overweight adults, too.

You would think that with the food prices going up astronomically, that people would start losing weight.

[AndyTiedye]

13. Nope. Probably Makes It Worse

All the cheap Foods are loaded with fat and carbs..

Exercise is increasingly a commodity, to be purchased in a "health club".

[melody]

10. See, here's the problem with fat people who live to middle age

We remember all the horror headlines from our youth ....

"Dead Viet Nam soldiers have hardening of the arteries just like senior citizens!"

Yes, they drag this around every so often. Anything to demonize fat people.

In a hundred years, we'll feel awful about the way we treat fat people. It'll be too late for me but maybe not
for another generation of fat kids.

[KurtNYC]

72. The study commonly cited was done during the Korean war and it is used to sell

the whole idea that cholesterol lowering drugs are beneficial as a defense against heart disease. Heart disease affects people regardless of their BMI.

Cholesterol lowering drugs are among the most profitable although their effects are disputable. So it would seem likely that they talk about "hardening of the arteries" as a way to keep the money coming in.

[investintrains]

14. isocaloric studies

isocaloric studies indicate that vegans weigh an avg 23 lbs
less than nonvegetarians and 12 lbs less than vegetarians

http://www.pcrm.org

[Scout]

36. so what?

i'd rather be fat and enjoy life, than eat like a vegan or a vegetarian

:eyes:

[Codeine]

44. I am a vegan

and I enjoy my life just fine, and I enjoy my food in particular. There are a wealth of wonderful foods and spectacular flavors that are purely vegetarian.

I'd also wager that being older and obese will dramatically detract from "enjoying life" anyway.

[Scout]

53. good for you!! we aren't all like you though, are we? and we aren't all required to be like you n/t

[Codeine]

60. Of course not.

I'm just taking issue with the notion that one cannot enjoy life while being a vegan. :hi:

[bemildred]

15. What a load of horseshit.

Read this sentence:

"No one knows how thick a 10-year-old's artery should be, since they're not regularly checked for signs of heart disease, so researchers used tables for 45-year-olds, who often do get such exams. The kids' "vascular age" was about 30 years older than their actual age, she found."

If you don't know what it ought to be, you don't know that it's "30 years older" than it ought to be.

[Thor_MN]

19. Comparing Apples to ... that fruit that they used to have 20, 30 years ago?

They can say that the 10 years old's arteries are simlar to 45 years olds, but since they have no data on 10 year old's from the past to compare against, no claim can be made that 10 year old's arteries are trending one way or the other. That doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, just that no comparison to the past can be made.

That's a problem with making claims on "life style choice" affecting longevity, you have to wait long enough for a significant portion of the people being studied to die before you can make any actual analysis.

[bemildred]

26. It's the fear-mongering that annoys me.

There are sound points to be made about diet and exercise being important at any age, but this sort of irrational blather does not help the cause. If nothing else, being afraid doesn't help with the tendency to snack, or with the fact that most commercially available snacks are unhealthy crap. Being afraid doesn't get you out of the house for a walk or a run either. If you want people to make and sustain healty changes in their lives, you need to address their adult, rational minds, not their endocrine reflexes.

[juno jones]

20. The use of high fructose corn syrup probably has a lot to do with it

And hydrogenated oils are still around even though they are no longer used in most restaurant food. I say 'most' because while there are localities that have banned it there are probably still restaurants around who use the stuff.

From what I understand, humans are not able to actually process these unnatural nutrients and as a result, the stuff is stored as fat rather than metabolized.

[Locrian]

21. sugar and carbs

sugar and carbs.

Just one look at what kids eat: cakes, pies, ice cream, cookies, crackers, chips, soda, juice, candy, cereal, etc. Not to mention the "meals" like hot pockets, macaroni and cheese, pop tarts, burrito rolls, pizza rolls, etc. Fat is often demonized (and for transfat rightly so) but the real issue is carbs and sugar.

Not to mention that these create a type of addiction by releasing chemicals in the brain - what sets your brain off more: a thick steak or a iced cinnamon roll?


Theres no mystery why diabetes etc has risen to such huge proportions. HCFS consumption alone has increased 1000% from the 1970's. I think its less the HCFS make up than simply the AMOUNT and availability of these crap foods. Not that I think you should starve yourself, just that this "food" is crap and more akin to a drug.

[LostinVA]

23. HFCS, not sugar

It's in EVERYTHING -- even alot of so-called healthy foods. Sugar is bad, but this stuff is worse.

[Cronus Protagonist]

63. HFCS is poison

It should be banned, IMHO, which is an unpopular thing to say in front of the farm lobby.

[guitar man]

74. yes,it is vile poison

My daughter is intolerant to HFCS and it almost killed her before the doctors figured out what was wrong. It should be banned.

[Quantess]

35. True, but kids have been eating sugar and carbs for decades....centuries, even.

Back in the old days, there was plenty of starch and fat to go with the fatty steaks and pork roast. Moms baked cookies and cakes (and cinnamon rolls) for dessert. But people were thinner.

[Scout]

38. but they didn't have HFCS, and more of the carbs were whole grains

not over-processed white flour and white sugar.

And some fat is not bad for you.

[Quantess]

46. But, even back in the 1960s and 1970s people ate refined sugar and white flour.

People didn't know that whole wheat bread was healthier, so they ate a lot of Wonder bread. People were a lot thinner, despite all that.

I'd like to know when HFCS was first put in soda pop. It's been around a while, I know that.

There is more to this story. Being sedentary and eating too much is largely responsible.

[Marie26]

49. Yeah, but it was more balanced

So people would have toast for breakfast, along w/eggs & sausage. That's a balanced meal w/equal amounts of carbs, protein & fat. But when the low-fat craze hit in the 80's, people started cutting out the protein & fat, which meant that they upped the carb level considerably. So people began eating toast & cereal for breakfast (or Poptarts!) w/o anything to balance it, believing that they were being healthy. But really all it did was create high blood glucose levels, leading to insulin resistance & diabetes. I'm convinced that the low-fat craze is what really started the obesity epidemic in this country - if you look at a chart, the two trends track almost exactly.

[Scout]

55. thank you Marie26, very well put--better than i did. n/t

[Quantess]

67. More balanced, and, the portions were smaller.

The low fat / no fat diets were bad, but those were a blip of the past, obsolete by year 2000. The high protein & no carb diets also are too extreme.

One problem with these fad diets, is that they make people believe they can lose weight by eating. Unless you're eating raw celery or raw cabbage, negative calorie foods, then no, you only gain calories by eating. Commercials are bad at this. Commercials give people the idea you lose weight just by eating yogurt. Yes, eating yogurt will make you lose weight, but only if you skip the pasta salad that you would have eaten instead. If you eat both, you'll gain weight. Obvious. But the commercials make people believe food can melt away fat.

Crazy diets, processed foods, HFCS, GMO foods, pesticides, medications, (even too much fluoride slows the thyroid) all probably contribute to weight gain in a minor way. But it all boils down to consuming too many calories and not burning enough calories.

Eating a plant based diet and getting exercise goes a long way toward being a healthy weight.

[Marie26]

70. Don't disagree

Yet I think you're overlooking the huge influence hormones have on weight. It's all about the insulin, IMO. If there's a lot of insulin in the bloodstream, the body will store glucose as fat & will not release fat even w/low calories. You said that eating yogurt will make you lose weight if you skip the pasta salad. I actually disagree w/that. Most commercial yogurts are jam-packed w/corn syrup, sugar, carbs, etc. and not a lot of fat. Fat creates satiety, while carbs do not. So if you just have a yogurt for breakfast (skipping the pasta salad), you'll still get a big sugar spike, leading the body to release a big insulin spike - the insulin stores the glucose calories away as fat, temporarily prevents weight loss, and makes the blood sugar plunge downward, leading to even more hunger an hour later, so you have another yogurt... & the cycle continues. With many high sugar spikes & plunges, the body becomes resistant to the insulin, so your pancreas releases more & more (storing away more & more fat), until the pancreas becomes exhausted & you're now diabetic & obese. So yes, people are sedentary & over-eating, but is that a cause of obesity - or an effect? A metabolic imbalance w/high insulin/glucose levels creates cravings (overeating), obesity, and reduced energy (sedentary). IMO you could make the argument that the metabolic imbalance causes the sedentary/overeating behavior, not the other way around.

And I disagree that the low-fat craze is over. Still now, if you go to the grocery store, packages of cookies, yogurt, waffles, etc. proclaim that they are "low-fat" & almost everyone drinks skim/2% milk. In the US, you see fat people eating low-fat foods. Go to France, & you'll see skinny people drinking whole milk, cream, & butter. Go to a US school cafeteria & you'll see juice, pop, candy, fries & chips everywhere and a lot of obese children. Yes, some people can get away w/a high-carb diet & exercise does increase insulin sensitivity. Yet there's a significant portion of the pop. w/a genetic tendency towards insulin resistance & for them the typical American diet is basically a hazard.

My family has a long history of diabetes & heart disease, and I was diagnosed as insulin resistant/pre-diabetic in my early 20's. This scared me to death & I began to do the research myself on how to solve the problem. Personally, I lost about 40 pounds by cutting out & reducing carbs in my diet & my glucose levels returned to normal. And I logged in my calories at the time - I didn't lose weight at 1,200 calories following a low-cal diet, but DID lose weight at 1,800 calories on a low-carb diet. Even now, I won't eat carbs w/o equal protein & the weight has stayed off. It's not just about the calories. Your body has to be able to burn the fat you have & to do that, you need to correct the metabolic imbalance that made you fat in the first place. Obesity is a SYMPTOM of an underlying metabolic imbalance, not the cause.

[Scout]

54. quite a contradiction there

"There is more to this story."

yet you are certain that...

"Being sedentary and eating too much is largely responsible."

[Quantess]

61. Yes, I am certain that being sedentary and eating too much are largely responsible.

There is more to the obesity epidemic than refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and white flour. Eating too much and not getting enough exercise are the main culprits.

Hope that clarifies. :)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

75. Coke swtiched to HFCS in 1985

It was when they switched to New Coke. (New Coke was so much sweeter because it was made with HFCS.)

When they switched back to Coca-Cola Classic, they kept using the HFCS (because it was so much cheaper than sugar) but in a reduced amount compared to New Coke.

[Codeine]

39. Precisely.

People were more active; children rode bikes, played ball in the street, and ran all over the place. Now they sit motionless in front of the tube, the Playstation, or MySpace while inhaling enormous gobs of food. Parents need to institute portion control and ensure their children are active. If you let your children grow enormously fat you're essentially sentencing them to a life of ill health because you don't want to be a Bad Guy and take responsibility for their lifestyle.

[Quantess]

48. Kids don't play like they used to.

Children of today play by sitting around, and are missing out on physically active play.

[Nikia]

65. I think that kids drink more sugary drinks now though

Some parents are convinced that drinking water is poisionous or something and give kids soda or sugary drinks for all their daily liquid. Kids probably get at least half their recommended number of calories from these drinks. Most of these drinks don't really fill kids up anymore than water though. As a result, they get too many calories because they still want to eat that much food. Switching kids to water for almost all of their daily liquid would help in many cases.

[Quantess]

66. And....juice.

Juice is nutritious, but it is packed with calories. Most people don't appreciate how easy it is to drink 500 calories of juice. It goes down fast.

[AllieB]

40. Sugar and Carbs: Exactly right, Locrian

HFCS or sugar in some sort is in everything-even at Whole Foods and in so-called natural foods. When the US began eating packaged crap and fast foods, diseases of civilization (heart disease, diabetes) increased.

[Marie26]

51. It's really incredible

I started checking the labels at the store to cut out HFCS, but it was in almost EVERYTHING. Even meats! Ugh.

[AllieB]

58. If you buy things like spaghetti sauce and chicken broth-even from Whole Foods

you'll see ingredients like 'organic cane sugar' and 'cane juice'. Sugar is sugar-whether it's in the form of HFCS or more natural sources, it causes a variety of diseases.

[fujiyama]

69. And of course

don't forget that's the crap that's been fed at school the last thirty + years. It's only been getting worse. Now we have vending machines in school selling pop. And many people seem to have little interest in even looking at healthier alternatives.

Is is it really that difficult to get, I don't know a freaking piece of fruit when you crave something sweet?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. the makers of Lipatur funded the study that says this...SELL MORE STATINS!!

[JJ]

29. Love the button

Anyplace sell those?

[JJ]

30. Is it just me, or is AP becoming the FoxNews of print?

[DU GrovelBot]

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[RUMMYisFROSTED]

47. "Skinniness Challenged," ferchrissakes!

:grr:

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

64. I think it's the salt. I've always used Very little salt in my cooking, but have Whole Milk,

Land O Lakes Butter, Half & Half always in the frig. Never, will I ever, purchase anything that is low fat. Most meals are home cooked here, cheat once a week with the Pizza take out on Fridays. My recipes are the what my Mom and her Mom served the family. Simple whole foods prepared well are good for you. Me and my son are slender, like Obama is, DH is abit overweight. Genetics plays a good part of this, but I always come back to the salt thing. There is something about that god damn salt that ticks me off. Too Much is not good.

[Quantess]

68. salt makes you retain water.

[jpgray]

77. Italy obesity rate? 6.5%. Amish? Thin motherfuckers

The land of pasta and pizza is kicking our fat asses. The bread and butter (on top of more bread and butter) Amish likewise. An inactive lifestyle kills metabolism dead, and thus erects near-insurmountable obstacles for any who wish to lose weight. Ideally vigorous exercise and a healthy diet should go together from the start, but the former seems more vitally important in my view based on the evidence. You can get (or stay) fat on a healthy diet, reason being that once your metabolism is shot and you are addicted to certain varieties of food it is ridiculously hard to claw your way back by force of will. No one should be ashamed of being overweight, but our couch-bound culture is something even the very skinny metabolic freaks (yo!) should be ashamed of. It's hideously unhealthy.