ISLAMABAD: One in three children with a strong family history of heart disease or Type-2 diabetes might have significantly higher levels of risk for cholesterol than kids with no family history of those conditions.
Health news reported that the findings have showed that such children had a higher ratio of total cholesterol and were also at risk of cardio-metabolic markers chances for having diabetes, heart disease or stroke. Lead researcher Nina Berentzen said, “One-third of the children in our study had a strong family history of diabetes. These children had higher levels of total cholesterol and a higher ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol than children with no family history”.
The team included 1,374 children who had both a clinical assessment at age 12 and parental reports on their family history of CVD and diabetes. Children with elevated levels of these markers were also at risk of increased body mass index (BMI) levels, high waist circumference and cholesterol, high blood pressure and blood sugar control. Most of the associations between family disease history and cardio-metabolic markers persisted, even after adjusting for the BMI of the parents and child. The study is the first to have investigated the occurrence of both diseases across two generations of parents and grandparents and to have related it to measurable risk factors in children. “Even children with a healthy weight could be at risk for unfavourable levels of cardio-metabolic markers if their parents or grandparents had diabetes,” researchers added.
