Lloyd-Jones is the senior investigator1 of the study presented Nov. 16 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando.
The effect of this worsening teen health is already being seen in young adults. For the first time, there is an increase in cardiovascular mortality rates in younger adults ages 35 to 44, particularly in women, Lloyd-Jones said.
The alarming health profiles of 5,547 children and adolescents, ages 12 to 19, reveal many have high blood sugar levels, are obese2 or overweight, have a lousy diet, don't get enough physical activity and even smoke, the new study reports. These youth are a representative sample of 33.1 million U.S. children and adolescents from the 2003 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.
"Cardiovascular disease is a lifelong process," Lloyd-Jones said. "The plaques3 that kill us in our 40s and 50s start to form in adolescence4 and young adulthood5. These risk factors really matter."
"After four decades of declining deaths from heart disease, we are starting to lose the battle again," Lloyd-Jones added.
The American Heart Association (AHA) defines ideal cardiovascular health as having optimum（最适宜的） levels of seven well-established cardiovascular risk factors, noted6 lead study author Christina Shay, who did the research while she was a postdoctoral fellow in preventive medicine at Northwestern's Feinberg School. Shay now is an assistant professor of epidemiology（流行病学） at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
"What was most alarming about the findings of this study is that zero children or adolescents surveyed met the criteria7 for ideal cardiovascular health," Shay said. "These data indicate ideal cardiovascular health is being lost as early as, if not earlier than the teenage years."
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