Could a New Test Determine Adolescent Risk for Later-Life Cardiovascular Disease?

Researchers at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital have gathered all the other factors and created one test that would take them all into consideration.

The test likewise considers variables that are particular both to race and sexual orientation.

“Cardiovascular disease continues to be a risky killer in the United States”.

Over a 600,000 people die every year in the U.S. of heart disease which in most cases is said to have modifiable risk factors.

The researchers followed up these children when they were about 49.6 years old on average and found a link between metabolic severity score and later development of heart disease. Physicians nationwide may potentially adapt this test to evaluate the future risks of teenagers for heart disease, which could encourage healthy behaviors that can potentially save their lives. Predominantly, cardiovascular diseases have modifiable risk factors which in turn mean that the exercise can indeed be prevented.

The new diagnostic test has been developed by a team that comprises Mark DeBoer, MD, of the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital’s Department of Pediatrics, and Matthew Gurka, PhD, from West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. Experts were interested especially in the levels of HDL cholesterol, fasting glucose, systolic blood pressure, fasting triglycerides and body mass index (BMI). As such, the team developed a metabolic severity score that is specific to a person’s sex and race/ethnicity.

Finally, DeBoer concludes, “We are hopeful that this score can be used to assess the baseline risk for adolescents regarding metabolic syndrome and their risk for future disease and use it as a motivator for individuals to try to change their risk so that they may have a healthier diet, engage in more physical activity or get medication to reduce their metabolic syndrome severity and their future risk for disease”.

Scientists have invented a test that can be administered to teens in order to predict their likelihood of developing heart disease and diabetes.

The take a look at is modern in that it is ready to assess modifications in metabolic syndrome severity in an individual over time and creates a selected quantity predicting danger. “So knowing a child’s risk or an adults risk for cardiovascular disease can help you be motivated to make a few of those changes”, said DeBoer. Previous diagnostic tests were only able to say whether an individual does or does not have metabolic syndrome, but the new test provides a scale of metabolic syndrome severity from adolescence to adulthood, alongside a specific score indicating risk.

It was determined that those with a high metabolic severity score were significantly more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, and a connection between this syndrome and diabetes was also identified. Genetic predisposition, however, is the singular risk factor that can not be changed. The findings were presented in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and in the journal Diabetologia.