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Childhood Obesity and Adult Coronary Heart Disease

Even small increases in BMI during childhood elevate risk for coronary heart disease in adulthood.

The obesity epidemic has heightened interest in the relation between childhood obesity and coronary heart disease (CHD). Investigators analyzed the association between BMI measured annually from age 7 to 13 years and CHD events in adulthood (age, 25 years) in 276,835 Danish school-children who were born between 1930 and 1976.

During the 46-year study, nearly 15,000 men and women had CHD events. For both sexes, the association between childhood BMI and adult CHD events was positive and linear, and the risk increased across the entire BMI distribution. Risk for any CHD event in adulthood increased significantly with the age of the overweight child and with increasing BMI. The authors estimated that a 13-year-old boy who weighs 11 kg more than average has a 33% higher risk for a CHD event by age 60 than a 13-year-old boy of average weight.

Comment: Two important messages emerge from this study. First, these data suggest that the relation between childhood weight and CHD in adulthood is linear and that even small increases in BMI elevate risk. Second, the risk for CHD in adulthood begins as early as age 7 years and becomes more pronounced later in childhood.

— Howard Bauchner, MD

Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine December 5, 2007

Citation(s):

Baker JL et al. Childhood body-mass index and the risk of coronary heart disease in adulthood. N Engl J Med 2007 Dec 6; 357:2329.

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