You're Never Too Young to Get Healthy Part 2

A few years back, the American Academy of Pediatrics made the headlines by recommending that children & adolescents get their cholesterol checked.  If you consider that heart & vascular disease is more likely to be lifelong issue rather than a short-term disease du jour, it makes sense to check periodically, especially when the kids are young.  Along those lines, perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that a prospective study published in last month's Pediatrics suggested that the Triglyceride:HDL ratio is a good way to assess arterial stiffness.

To be more specific, the authors analyzed 893 volunteers of whom avg age was barely 19yo, 2 in 5 were men, and just 1 in 2 were white.  At that point, cardiovascular risk factors were linked to TG:HDL ratio in which higher ratios were tied to arterial stiffness in young children & adolescents.  Just like the power of compounded interest, the sooner one starts improving one's health, the easier it'll be later on.  In this situation, starting to aggressively manage high cholesterol as a youth may pay off dividends in terms of lower heart & vascular disease later on.

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