In a study now being published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Associate Professor Paul Franks of Umeå University in Sweden, in collaboration with researchers in the US, shows how childhood obesity, together with other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, affects premature death.
The researchers studied 4,857 children from the indigenous Indian population in the US, born between 1945 and 1984. All underwent detailed medical examinations, including measurement of body fat (BMI), cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. The children were then followed up for an average of 24 years of their continuing lives, during which time further parameters were monitored, as were any deaths in the group.
In this group, 559 individuals (11.5%) died before the age of 55, 166 of them from natural causes. The most common natural causes of death were alcohol-related liver disease and cardiovascular disease. Among the four risk factors that were monitored in the study, childhood obesity turned out to be the strongest predictor of premature death from disease. The 1,214 most overweight children in the group (the upper quarter) had a mortality frequency that was more than twice as high (230%) of that of the leanest quarter of those studied.
In a similar manner, high blood sugar was shown to elevate the frequency of death by 73%, and high blood pressure in the childhood years raised the risk by 53%. These two risk factors were almost entirely associated with the degree of obesity. On the other hand, the scientists found no measurable effects on mortality from high cholesterol values in childhood. All children in the group were diabetes free when the study commenced, but nearly 600 of them developed diabetes during the follow-up period. However, this fact could not explain the connection between childhood obesity and premature death.
This is the first study of its kind and is especially interesting since the group under study, as children as early as the 1940s, had an equally high level of obesity as many children today. The proportion of overweight children is on the rise all over the world, and the authors conclude that measure to increase physical activity, improve food habits, and keep families together should receive high priority during early childhood.
Anti-obesity drugs show promise in improving cardiovascular health beyond weight loss