Study of Fatty Food Risk for the Young

By JAMES ROWLEY, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP). January, 1997

The cheeseburgers, french fries and milkshakes children eat can build up fat in their arteries that could cause heart attacks later in life, researchers say. A new study found that teenagers and young adults who ate fat-rich diets or smoked showed higher risk factors for heart attacks than those who ate less fatty foods and didn't smoke. Deposits of fat and raised lesions, believed to cause heart disease, were found in the aortas and coronary arteries of young people with high levels of cholesterol, according to autopsies on 1,079 men and 364 women between the ages of 15 and 34. Fewer deposits and lesions were found in subjects who had lower levels of cholesterol. The autopsies were performed on young people who died violent or accidental deaths. The data provide the most comprehensive evidence that diet and smoking at an early age can begin the process that leads to heart disease, the researchers said. Even among subjects as young as 15, there were significant differences between the arteries of those who ate fatty diets and smoked and those who didn't. ``It starts a very early age,'' said pathologist Gray T. Malcom, who was part of the research team at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans. ``We should be much more concerned about modifying these risk factors at an early age if we indeed hope to prolong or hopefully prevent so much coronary heart disease,'' she said Monday in a telephone interview. The results were published in the January issue of the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, a publication of the American Heart Association. The amount of fatty deposits increased with age, but cut across races, ethnic groups and sex, the study said. Similar results were found in autopsies performed on the bodies of young American soldiers killed during the Korean and Vietnam wars. But the latest study, performed at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, is the largest sample of data on young women. Researchers said their study disproves the notion that women, who generally have heart attacks a decade later then men, do not have to modify their eating habits until later in life. Still, there were differences in build-up of lesions between men and women. There were equal numbers of raised lesions in the abdominal aortas of men and women. But men had a greater number of raised lesions in the coronary arteries. While researchers cannot explain this disparity, ``the risk factors still have an effect in young women and young men,'' Malcom said. All children over the age of 2 are urged to keep fat consumption under 30 percent of daily calories, 10 percent of saturated fat, according to recommendations by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute panel on cholesterol education. Autopsy data were collected from 15 centres around the country. Blood-serum cholesterol tests were performed during autopsies and there were chemical tests for thiocyanate, a marker for smoking. High levels of low-density (LDL) cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, were found in subjects who had fat streaks of raised lesions on the inner surfaces of the aorta and the right coronary artery. Subjects with high levels of high-density (HDL) cholesterol, which is credited with helping clear the arteries, and low levels of LDL cholesterol, had fewer deposits of fat the study found.