Seems like an awful long time to worry about. 35 years. Heck–I don’t even know what I’m doing this weekend, let alone in 3 1/2 decades. So why should anyone worry if they might have a heart attack in 35 years?
Because you will care in 35 years from now. Try to sound as tough as you’d like now, but once that crushing pain hits your chest and you get rushed to the ER to have your sternum cracked open with a spreader and have one of your more precious organs replumbed, you would be willing to go back and change it all.
On the other hand, maybe this is why you’ve made the right choices. You’re exercising with short burst methods, avoiding refined carbs and eating omega 3’s instead of omega 6’s. In general, you’re following the recommendations that can be found by by clicking here.
But it’s not you I’m addressing this post to. It’s your young child.
We are seeing growing evidence that heart disease begins in childhood. Or rather, we should NOT see heart disease beginning in childhood, but we are. Rest assured it is because of the preprogramming that begins in the womb and continues through childhood and adolescent. The poor lifestyle choices aquired early are very likely to perpetuate for the rest of his or her life.
This particular study took the research we have seen on risk factors for heart disease and put a practical spin on it. Basically, how likely are these risk factors going to turn into a heart attack 35 years later?
If you’re doing the math, we are talking about an adult in his or her 40’s or 50’s having a heart attack, the beginnings of which stretched back to childhood.
Researchers looked at the ESR levels of 433,577 young adult men in Sweden. ESR is a general marker of inflammation (erythrocyte sedimentation rate). And inflammation is a strong player in heart disease. So what did they find in those kids with higher levels of ESR?
Those kids who had an ESR of ≥15 mm/h had 70% increased risk of having had a heart attack 35 years later (Tweet this). And this was after accounting for traditional risk factors associated with heart disease.
70% increased risk. From behaviors your child is adopting NOW. It is becoming far too common to hear about parents in their 60’s or 70’s losing a child to heart disease. Unless we wake up and change our kids’ behaviors (which always starts with changing YOUR behaviors…), the number of parents burying their adult children will only go up.
What are YOU going to change today?