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New Study Reveals How BRCA1 Mutations Cause
public health
| Obese Adolescents at Risk for Adult Heart Disease A new study investigating the health effects of being overweight during adolescence projects alarming increases in the rates of heart disease and premature death by the time today’s teenagers reach young adulthood. Based on the numbers of overweight adolescents in 2000, the study found that up to 37 percent of males and 44 percent of females may be obese when they are 35 years old in 2020. As a consequence, these young adults may have more chronic chest pain, more heart attacks, and more early deaths before age 50. By 2035, the study estimates a 16 percent increase in heart disease over today’s numbers and a rise in cardiovascular deaths by as much as 19 percent. “Although the general findings of our analysis are not surprising, we were struck by the sheer magnitude of the impact of adolescent obesity and, as a result, how important it is as a public health priority,” says the study’s senior author Lee Goldman, M.D., M.P.H., executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences at CUMC and dean of the medical school. Dr. Goldman and a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco estimated the potential impact of the nation’s 9 million overweight adolescents on future adult health using the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model, a computer-based statistical modeling system he helped develop. The researchers also used the model to investigate whether the negative health impact of obesity could be reversed by treating obesity-related complications such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Findings indicate that controlling these factors at a young age will help, but heart disease rates could still rise due to the persistent risk of diabetes associated with obesity. “This study highlights the importance of preventing obesity before it starts in children,” says the study’s lead author, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. “The current high rate of overweight is not just a problem for adolescents and their parents, it is something that will affect all of us well into the future.” NEJM 357(23): 2371-2379 The study was funded by the Swanson Family Fund at UCSF, Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the NIH. |
