(Press-News.org) Amsterdam, Netherlands – 23 Aug 2023: Hours of inactivity during childhood could be setting the stage for heart attacks and strokes later in life, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 The study found that sedentary time accumulated from childhood to young adulthood was associated with heart damage – even in those with normal weight and blood pressure.
“All those hours of screen time in young people add up to a heavier heart, which we know from studies in adults raises the likelihood of heart attack and stroke,”2 said study author Dr. Andrew Agbaje of the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. “Children and teenagers need to move more to protect their long-term health.”
This was the first study to investigate the cumulative effect of smartwatch-assessed sedentary time in young people and cardiac damage later in life. It was conducted as part of the Children of the 90s study, which began in 1990/1991 and is one of the world’s largest cohorts with lifestyle measurements from birth.3
At 11 years of age, children wore a smartwatch with an activity tracker for seven days. This was repeated at 15 years of age and again at 24 years of age. The weight of the heart’s left ventricle was assessed by echocardiography, a type of ultrasound scan, at 17 and 24 years of age and reported in grams relative to height (g/m2.7). The researchers analysed the association between sedentary time between 11 and 24 years of age and heart measurements between 17 and 24 years of age after adjusting for factors that could influence the relationship including age, sex, blood pressure, body fat, smoking, physical activity and socioeconomic status.
The study included 766 children, of whom 55% were girls and 45% were boys. At 11 years of age, children were sedentary for an average of 362 minutes a day, rising to 474 minutes a day in adolescence (15 years of age), and 531 minutes a day in young adulthood (24 years of age). This means that sedentary time increased by an average of 169 minutes (2.8 hours) a day between childhood and young adulthood.
Each one-minute increase in sedentary time from 11 to 24 years of age was associated with a 0.004 g/m2.7 increase in left ventricular mass between 17 to 24 years of age. When multiplied by 169 minutes of additional inactivity this equates to a 0.7 g/m2.7 daily rise – the equivalent of a 3 gram increase in left ventricular mass between echocardiography measurements at the average height gain. A previous study in adults found that a similar increase in left ventricular mass (1 g/m2.7) over a seven-year period was associated with a two-fold increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and death.4
Dr. Agbaje said: “Children were sedentary for more than six hours a day and this increased by nearly three hours a day by the time they reached young adulthood. Our study indicates that the accumulation of inactive time is related to heart damage regardless of body weight and blood pressure. Parents should encourage children and teenagers to move more by taking them out for a walk and limiting time spent on social media and video games. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means keep moving.’”
ENDS
Notes to editors
Authors: ESC Press Office
Tel: +33 (0) 661401884
Email: press@escardio.org
The hashtag for ESC Congress 2023 is #ESCCongress.
Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews
Funding: The UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (grant No. 217065/Z/19/Z) and the University of Bristol provide core support for the Avon Longitudinal Study and Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The British Heart Foundation (grant No. CS/15/6/31468) funded blood pressure and Actigraph activity monitoring device measurement at age 24 years. The Medical Research Council (grant No. MR/M006727/1) supported smoking data collection. A comprehensive list of grant funding is available on the ALSPAC website (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/external/documents/grant-acknowledgements.pdf); A.O.A.'s research group (UndeRstanding FITness and Cardiometabolic Health In Little Darlings: urFIT-child) was funded by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (grant No. 00180006); the North Savo regional and central Finnish Cultural Foundation (grant Nos. 65191835, 00200150, and 00230190); the Orion Research Foundation sr; Aarne Koskelo Foundation; Antti and Tyyne Soininen Foundation; Paulo Foundation; Paavo Nurmi Foundation; Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (grant No. 20217390); and the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research (grant Nos. 220021 and 230012).
Disclosures: None.
References and notes
1The abstract “Cumulative accelerometer-based sedentary time from childhood through young adulthood with progressive left ventricular remodelling in British youth: a 13-year longitudinal study” will be presented during the session Physical inactivity and exercise which takes place on Sunday 27 August from 08:15 to 09:00 CEST at Station 10.
2Armstrong AC, Gidding S, Gjesdal O, et al. LV mass assessed by echocardiography and CMR, cardiovascular outcomes, and medical practice. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2012;5:837-848.
3The Children of the 90s study is also known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).
4de Simone G, Kizer JR, Chinali M, et al. Normalization for body size and population-attributable risk of left ventricular hypertrophy: the Strong Heart Study. Am J Hypertens. 2005;18(2 Pt 1):191-196.
About ESC Congress 2023
It is the world’s largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals, disseminating ground-breaking science both onsite in Amsterdam and online – from 25 to 28 August. Explore the scientific programme. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.
About the European Society of Cardiology
The European Society of Cardiology brings together health care professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people lead longer, healthier lives.
END
Sedentary time in children linked with heart damage in young adulthood
2023-08-23
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
People taking adult education classes run lower risk of dementia
2023-08-23
How can we best keep our brain fit as we grow older? It’s well known that regular cognitive activity, for example brainteasers, sudokus, or certain video games in middle and old age tends to protect against cognitive decline and dementias like Alzheimer’s. But many of us regularly engage in adult education classes, for example learning a language or a new skill. Is such adult education likewise associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia?
Yes, according to researchers from the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan who have shown for the first time, in a new study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
“Here ...
Firearm injuries and the pandemic: Lower opportunity neighborhoods are disproportionately affected
2023-08-23
During a time when hospitals were overrun with COVID-19 patients and ventilators were in high demand, the nation’s
focus was not on firearm-related injuries. With our attention elsewhere, it may have seemed that these injuries
appeared to decrease and mass shootings seemed to disappear. But that doesn’t mean firearm injuries went away. In
fact, for one group of children in particular, firearm trauma rates grew. In a new study, investigators at Children’s
Hospital Los Angeles reveal that ...
Dramatic reductions in malaria cases and deaths continue over five years with seasonal malaria vaccine-drug combination
2023-08-23
Final results of landmark study confirm two-thirds reduction in cases of malaria, including cases of severe malaria, and deaths from malaria, for RTS,S-drug combination over either intervention given alone in settings of highly seasonal malaria transmission.
RTS,S vaccine has similar high efficacy to drugs in preventing malaria in highly seasonal transmission settings.
Overall reduction in malaria incidence likely “tops” 90% among children protected by bednets, vaccines, and drugs.
Seattle and London, August 22, 2023—The final results of a landmark study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases ...
Cells with an ear for music release insulin
2023-08-23
Diabetes is a condition in which the body produces too little or no insulin. Diabetics thus depend on an external supply of this hormone via injection or pump. Researchers led by Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel want to make the lives of these people easier and are looking for solutions to produce and administer insulin directly in the body.
One such solution the scientists are pursuing is enclosing insulin-producing designer cells in capsules that can be implanted in the body. To be able to control from the outside when and how much insulin the cells release into the blood, researchers have studied and applied ...
Birds living at UCLA were less afraid of humans after the pandemic closure
2023-08-23
When UCLA shifted to remote instruction during the early days of COVID-19, the campus was much less populated — but it wasn’t totally empty. Several species of animals continued to go about their daily lives, just with far fewer disturbances from humans.
Among them were around 300 dark-eyed juncos, a bird species that has thrived at UCLA for probably around 20 years.
A group of UCLA scientists who have been studying fear and aggression in urban juncos for years recognized that the dramatic shift in human activity presented a unique opportunity for an experiment: ...
Guiding the design of silicon devices with improved efficiency
2023-08-23
Silicon is one of the most pervasive functional materials of the modern age, underpinning semiconductor technologies ranging from microelectronics to solar cells. Indeed, silicon transistors enable computing applications from cell phones to supercomputers, while silicon photovoltaics are the most widely deployed solar-cell technology to date. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports that nearly 50% of new electric generation capacity in 2022 came from solar cells, and according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), silicon has a 95% market share. Yet despite silicon’s ...
NREL analysis quantifies impacts of setback ordinances on land available for renewable energy deployment
2023-08-23
The number of local zoning ordinances governing renewable energy deployment is growing in the United States, according to new research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The amount of land available to deploy renewables depends on the characteristics of the ordinances.
“It’s important to understand the types of ordinances in effect, specifically setback ordinances, or the required distance from a specific feature like a house,” said Anthony ...
BU research probes the contradictory roles of SAA in fighting inflammation and infection while triggering life-threatening disease
2023-08-22
(Boston) – Serum amyloid A (SAA) is a family of ancient proteins that can be traced from present-day humans back half a billion years to sea cucumbers and oysters. A new study by researchers from the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine explores the link between the dual nature of this small plasma protein: how it works to clear toxic debris from wounds and inflammation sites, but also its role in forming fibrous deposits of the pathologic amyloid in vital organs such as the ...
AI can predict certain forms of esophageal and stomach cancer
2023-08-22
In the United States and other western countries, a form of esophageal and stomach cancer has risen dramatically over the last five decades. Rates of esophageal adenocarcinoma, or EAC, and gastric cardia adenocarcinoma, or GCA, are both highly fatal.
However, Joel Rubenstein, M.D., M.S., a research scientist at the Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Kettles Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research and professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine, says that preventative measures can be a saving grace.
“Screening can identify pre-cancerous changes in ...
Cuproptosis-related MTF1 inhibits kidney renal clear cell carcinoma progression by suppressing proliferation and regulating immune cell infiltration
2023-08-22
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/AMM-2023-0016
Announcing a new publication for Acta Materia Medica journal. Cuproptosis is a newly identified specific form of programmed cell death. This study aims to identify cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in patients with kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) from the The Cancer Genome Atlas database and to evaluate CRG biological functions. Using lasso regression, four KIRC prognosis-associated CRGs were identified and an associated prognostic risk signature was constructed. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that patients with ...