Heart health begins to decline at the age of 10 for children living unhealthy lives, putting them at risk of deadly heart attacks and stroke in adulthood, researchers have warned. Cardiovascular disease, which affects around 7.6million Brits, is mostly caused by lifestyle factors — such as obesity, poor diets, smoking and lack of exercise.
Researchers from the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute have now pinpointed the crucial age window for protecting yourself against these factors, improving heart health into adulthood. In the study, published in JAMA Cardiology, researchers studied health data from over 1,500 children aged between 3 and 16 from Massachusetts.
The team assesed each child's diet, physical activity, sleep duration, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and exposure to smoking, such as secondhand smoking which can also increase the risk of heart disease. The scientists also studied the blood sugar and cholesterol levels of children in mid-childhood between 6 to 10 years and early adolescence between 11 and 16 years.
Using this data they calculated a heart health score, said to indicate the child's risk of a heart attack in later life. They found that cardiovascular health scores begin to decline at around 10-years-old across all demographic groups who have poor diets and do little exercise.
Risk factors for the disease such as high blood pressure, abnormal blood sugar levels, elevated cholesterol, and obesity beginning in childhood. Researchers theorised that 10 may be the crucial age because it's at this point that children in the study tended to eat less healthily, and get poorer quality sleep.
