Heart disease, like hypertension or a heart attack, usually manifests in adulthood, with the peak age for heart attacks in men being age 65. It is known that the disease has been going on for a very long time by the time that happens. But how long.
A new study indicates that the risk in the risk of heart disease and the decline in cardiovascular health (CVH) begings to turn for the worse at age 10!
STUDY
The American Heart Association put forth the Life’s Essential 8 construct to assess cardiovascular health (CVH) based on 8 behavioral and health factors. Few studies have characterized the natural history of CVH in early life or identified its sociodemographic determinants. A higher CVH score indicates better health features and a drop in the CVH score indicates more risk.
Among 1523 children, 782 (51) were male. The mean CVH score was 83) in early childhood, 84 in midchildhood, 82 in early adolescence, and 74 in late adolescence.
The estimated mean age of inflection when CVH score declined was 10 years for both male and female children.
STUDY CONCLUSIONS
This study provides insight into the trajectory of CVH early in life, which may contribute to CVH disparities in adulthood, and identified modifiable health behaviors for focused prevention efforts to optimize CVH in early life.
As for why cardiovascular health begins to worsen around age 10, that authors pointed to behavioral changes that affect diet, physical activity, and sleep duration that typically occur at this time of life, adding that adolescents may start to smoke as well.
In an accompanying editorial to the article, the viewpoint was that “It’s never too early to think about your heart health. I think we tend to wait until something goes wrong, until you’re older and you develop high blood pressure, or God forbid, have a heart attack. But promoting cardiovascular health early and staying healthy throughout the life course and early in the life course is really important.”
