Heart Disease Risk Factors Can Be Stopped

Scientists say the risk factors for adult heart disease are already impacting U.S. children, starting to clog their arteries as early as age 12.

We could probably eliminate 90 percent of heart attacks if we’d make sure our kids were eating right and getting enough exercise from the start, rather than waiting to treat them for diseases that show up decades later as a direct result of years of bad eating habits and a lack of exercise, says Dr. Henry C. McGill Jr., senior scientist emeritus at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio.

What we’ve found through literally decades of study is that the beginning of arteriosclerosis can be detected in children as young as 12 years old. They may be in their 40s or 50s or 60s when they experience a heart attack, but the build-up of deposits in the artery walls began many years earlier, when they were kids.

McGill believes a cultural revolution will be necessary for attitudes to change about children’s lifestyles, but the good news is the fix is free.

That’s because it costs nothing to change kids’ diet and exercise routines from harmful to helpful, McGill says.