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Category: children

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From the Medical Daily:

High Blood Pressure In Teens, Young Adults A Sign Of Hardened Arteries Down The Road

Your blood pressure during your teens and early twenties, though often naturally low due to youth, may have something to do with your cardiovascular health in later years, according to new research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In the new study, which was published in JAMA, researchers found that having higher blood pressure during your teens and twenties was actually linked to hardened arteries at age 40.

The study, led by epidemiologist Norrina Allen, points out the significance of maintaining cardiovascular health at a young age.

The study reviewed 4,600 men and women throughout several different states and followed them for 25 years. They found that 19 percent of them had blood pressure that was much higher than their peers, and that another 5 percent started with high blood pressure that gradually rose. Though these blood pressure readings fell within “normal” range for their age, it was higher than average and thus they were more likely to develop hypertension by age 40. Hypertension is also known as high blood pressure or arterial hypertension.

“While you wouldn’t prescribe medications for this group, you might have conversations with those individuals about ways they can improve their diet or increase physical activity,” Allen told NPR. She notes that “many of these cardiovascular risk factors are cumulative,” meaning they often occur over a long period of time and are a combination of things, from smoking to living a sedentary lifestyle.

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From Science Daily:

Overweight or obese people breathe more air pollutants

Overweight or obese adults can breathe 7-50% more air per day than an adult with healthy weight does, which makes them more vulnerable to air contaminants causing asthma and other pulmonary diseases, according to a study by Dr. Pierre Brochu, a professor at Université de Montréal's School of Public Health. For overweight or obese children, daily inhalation rates are 10-24% higher than for normal weight children.

Study based on more than 1,900 participants: Brochu's study is based on an analysis of data from 1,069 participants aged 5-96 years, compared with data collected from 902 normal weight people (in a study conducted by Dr. Brochu in 2011). Data were analyzed, among other things, according to participant age and gender. Adults were also classified according to their body mass index

The situation for obese children may be even more worrisome, according to the data analyzed by Dr. Brochu. In fact, because of their much higher metabolism -- in relation to their low body weight -- they breathe more air per kilogram of weight than obese adults do to maintain their basic functions and perform their daily activities. The same trend applies to men compared to women. "It remains to be seen if high inhalation rates are a factor in the development of asthma and other lung diseases in adults and children," said Dr. Brochu, who hopes to eventually validate this hypothesis.