Over 70% of American Children Have Poor Heart Health



The American Heart Association's new criteria and scoring system are being used for the first time in a study in the United States to assess cardiovascular health.

The majority of children and adolescents in the United States have low scores for cardiovascular health, according to the first study to apply the American Heart Association's new "Life's Essential 8" criteria and scoring system for evaluating cardiovascular health levels in adults and children (CVH). Less than 30% of kids between the ages of 2 and 19 had high CVH in total.

In toddlers 2 to 5 years old, 56 percent had high CVH, compared to 33 percent in children 6 to 11 years old and 14 percent in adolescents 12 to 19 years old. The study was released in the Circulation journal.

According to senior author Amanda Marma Perak, MD, a cardiologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, "we found that scores were lowest for the diet metric among U.S. children, which is comparable to what we saw in adults."

"Even without a change in weight, individuals and families that alter their dietary habits can significantly enhance their overall cardiovascular health. We need policy-level support for better diets in addition to family-level measures, such as subsidies for fruit and vegetable production, increased accessibility of healthier meals, and the elimination of sugar-sweetened beverage alternatives in schools.

The eight components of the updated CVH definition are: sleep duration, a new measure; food; physical activity; nicotine exposure; BMI; blood lipids; blood glucose; and blood pressure. The eight components also include modified versions of the previous seven metrics. For this inquiry, researchers used information from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) from 2013 to 2018. More than 201 million persons and 74 million children in the United States were represented by the 13,521 adult and 9,888 kid participants.

For all children aged 2 to 19 years, only three CVH indicators (diet, physical activity, and BMI) were available in the NHANES. Other measures were introduced as people aged, starting with lipids at age 6, blood pressure at age 8, nicotine and glucose at age 12, and sleep at age 16.

Dr. Marma Perak, the pediatric expert for the concurrently released American Heart Association Presidential Advisory that redefined the concept of CVH through the new metrics, stated that "maintenance of higher cardiovascular health at all ages is associated with extremely favorable health outcomes."

Children with high CVH had decreased midlife prevalences of subclinical cardiovascular disease. Additionally, the risk of premature clinical cardiovascular disease events in children over the course of the following 30 years is incredibly low if they are able to maintain high CVH until late adolescence or early adulthood. The new CVH metrics will ultimately enable physicians and scientists to follow changes more precisely in order to intervene sooner and put children on a healthier course into adulthood.

American Heart Association's New "Life's Essential 8" Metrics Status of Cardiovascular Health in US Adults and Children: Prevalence Estimates from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2013-2018 published in Circulation on June 29, 2022, by Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, Hongyan Ning, Darwin Labarthe, LaPrincess Brewer, Garima Sharma, Wayne Rosamond, Terrie Black, Michael A. Grandner, Norrina B. Allen, Cheryl Anderson, Helen Lavretsky, and Amanda M. Perak.

Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute carries out research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.



By ANN & ROBERT H. LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF CHICAGO,Northwestern University

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