(Press-News.org) Lifestyle changes between childhood and adulthood appear associated with whether an individual will maintain, improve or develop high-risk cholesterol levels, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Over the past 25 years, several studies have assessed whether cholesterol and triglyceride levels in youth carry through to adulthood, according to background information in the article. "Although these studies found that youth levels correlate well with adult levels, they have shown that a substantial proportion of youth with high-risk levels will not have high-risk levels in adulthood and that a substantial proportion of adults with high-risk levels had normal levels as youth," the authors write. "That is, there exists a reasonable amount of instability in the classification of blood lipid and lipoprotein levels as youth."
Costan G. Magnussen, Ph.D., of University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, and University of Turku, Finland, and colleagues studied 539 young adults. Participants had their cholesterol and triglyceride levels measured in 1985 when they were age 9, 12 or 15, and again at a follow-up between 2004 and 2006 (an average of 20 years later). High-risk levels were defined as a total cholesterol level of 240 milligrams per deciliter or higher, an LDL or "bad" cholesterol level of 160 milligrams per deciliter or higher, an HDL or "good" cholesterol level of less than 40 milligrams per deciliter or a triglyceride level of 200 milligrams per deciliter or higher. In addition, their height, weight, waist circumference, skin-fold thickness, smoking behaviors, cardiorespiratory fitness and socioeconomic factors were recorded at both time points.
"Using established cut points, we found that substantial proportions of individuals with high-risk blood lipid and lipoprotein levels at baseline no longer had high-risk levels at follow-up," the authors write. Those who did remain high-risk gained more body fat and were more likely to begin or continue smoking during the follow-up period.
Participants who had low-risk profiles in youth but became high-risk as adults also had greater increases in body fat, were less likely to improve their socioeconomic conditions and became less fit between measurements than did those who remained low-risk.
When looking only at high-density lipoprotein levels (HDL, or "good" cholesterol), the authors found that participants who did not improve any lifestyle factors between youth and adulthood had more than double the prevalence of low HDL levels than the study average (26.2 percent vs. 11.9 percent). Conversely, those who had improved at least two lifestyle factors had a prevalence of low HDL less than one-fourth that of the study average.
"Our findings are important for two reasons. First, they suggest that beneficial changes in modifiable risk factors (smoking and adiposity) in the time between youth and adulthood have the potential to shift those with high-risk blood lipid and lipoprotein levels in youth to low-risk levels in adulthood. Second, they emphasize that preventive programs aimed at those who do not have high-risk blood lipid and lipoprotein levels in youth are equally important if the proportion of adults with high-risk levels is to be reduced."
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(Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2011;165[1]:68-76. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
To contact Costan G. Magnussen, Ph.D., e-mail cmagnuss@utas.edu.au.
For More Information: Contact the JAMA/Archives Media Relations Department at 312-464-JAMA or email: mediarelations@jama-archives.org.
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Parent education programs delivered through pediatric primary care offices appeared to increase parent-child interactions during infancy in at-risk families, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A second report in the same issue finds one of the programs also appeared to be associated with reduced exposure to TV and other media in infants.
"Children growing up in poverty fall behind their middle-class peers in development from the time they say their first words, usually shortly ...
Depression and diabetes appear to be associated with a significantly increased risk of death from heart disease and risk of death from all causes over a six-year period for women, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Depression affects close to 15 million U.S. adults each year and more than 23.5 million U.S. adults have diabetes, according to background information in the article. Symptoms of depression affect between one-fifth and one-fourth of patients with diabetes, nearly twice as many as ...
Editor's Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
To contact corresponding author Arthur L. Brody, M.D., call Mark Wheeler at 310-794-2265 or e-mail mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu. To contact Teresa Franklin, Ph.D., call Kim Menard at 215-662-6183 or e-mail kim.menard@uphs.upenn.edu.
For More Information: Contact the JAMA/Archives Media Relations Department at 312-464-JAMA or email: mediarelations@jama-archives.org.
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Did you know that when you pick up a product promoted as trans fat free, you may still be ingesting a significant amount of this potentially harmful substance? An article by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine student Eric Brandt, published in the January/February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion, reveals that misleading labeling practices can result in medically significant intake of harmful trans fat, despite what you read on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved labels. Indeed, consumers' inability to identify high-risk foods ...
New York, NY (January 3, 2010) --- Parent education programs delivered through pediatric primary care offices increased parent-child play and reading activities critical for child development and school readiness during infancy in at-risk families, according to two concurrent reports in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"Research has shown that children growing up in poverty fall behind their middle-class peers in development – even before their first birthday," says Alan L. Mendelsohn, MD, a developmental-behavioral ...
Combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms appear to be associated with longer-term physical (headache, tinnitus), emotional (irritability) and cognitive (diminished concentration or memory) symptoms, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Conversely, concussion/mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) do not appear to have long-term negative effects on troops.
"Nearly 2 million troops have been deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom since 2001," the ...
Jerusalem, January 3. 2011 – With the current outbreak of the flu season in Israel, hospitals are reporting overcrowding, and doctors are advising people who have not yet been vaccinated against flu to get their shots.
Surprisingly, however, three physicists -- one from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and two others from the University of Michigan – have developed an unconventional, theoretical strategy for intensive but limited vaccination against infectious diseases (such as flu) that would replace the practice of mass inoculation over a prolonged period. The ...
In emerging countries such as China or Brazil, meat consumption is rising dramatically. Indeed, worldwide consumption of red meat has quadrupled since 1961. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects increasing prosperity to lead to a doubling of global meat production by the year 2050. The question is whether our planet, with its limited farmland resources, will still be able to meet all of our needs into the future. Possible solutions for the brewing dilemma are familiar to Dr.-Ing. Peter Eisner of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering ...
CO2 is more than just a waste product. In fact, it has a variety of uses: the chemical industry makes use of this colorless gas to produce urea, methanol and salicylic acid. Urea is a fertilizer, methanol is a fuel additive, and salicylic acid is an ingredient in aspirin.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT in Oberhausen are pursuing a new idea by testing how carbon dioxide can be used to impregnate plastics. At a temperature of 30.1 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 73.8 bar, CO2 goes into a supercritical state ...
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University of Cincinnati researcher Kathleen Lynch, associate professor of classics, examines a time line of wine-drinking cups in ancient Athens. Changes in these cups, which were used in symposia (think...
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How commonly used items – like wine drinking cups – change through time can tell us a lot about those times, according to University of Cincinnati research to be presented Jan. 7 by Kathleen Lynch, UC associate professor of classics, ...
