The risk of suffering a blood clot in the legs or lungs as an adult is higher for people who were overweight as a child. But the good news is that losing weight before becoming a teenager reduces the risk. This is shown by research from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital.

2019.06.20 | Helle Horskjær Hansen

One out of five children in Denmark weigh too much and problems with weight often continue in adult life. Seventy per cent of the overweight children are also overweight as adults, among other things because they never get rid of the unhealthy habits that they formed in childhood.

In Denmark, every fifth child is overweight, and the extra kilos can have major consequences later in life. New results published in the Journal of the American Heart Association show that being overweight during childhood increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases in adult life.

Researchers studied children between the ages of 7 and 13 years. The children were divided into groups according to their BMI ranging from normal weight to moderately overweight and obese. They were then compared to children with a BMI in the normal range before subsequently being followed through their adult life so the researchers could register those who developed a blood clot in the leg or lungs.

“Those who were overweight as children suffered blood clots in the legs and lungs more often as adults, and the correlation became even clearer according to how overweight the child was,” says Jens Sundbøll, who is behind the study. He is a medical doctor and PhD at the Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital.

Being overweight is a major problem

For example, the risk of suffering a blood clot for women who were placed in the ‘obese’ category at the ages of seven or thirteen was approximately fifty per cent higher than for women who had a normal BMI as a child. For men, the risk was almost the same, but slightly lower.
Jens Sundbøll finds the results worrying as more and more children and adolescents are struggling with overweight.

"Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents is a problem that is growing all over the world. Over the last 35 years, the number of children who are overweight has increased by almost fifty per cent – and we can see that they are becoming younger and younger when they become overweight,” he says.

Need to get rid of superfluous kilos before puberty

However, the study also has a positive message.

"The risk of blood clots in people who were overweight in early childhood, but who had lost weight before puberty, was at the same level as those whose weight was normal throughout childhood," says Jens Sundbøll.

According to the researcher, focus should be on helping children to lose weight and stay within the normal range as a way of preventing cardiovascular diseases in adulthood.

"Current evidence suggests that childhood overweight is not harmless, and as a society and as parents we need to be much more aware of children who develop overweight. After all, it's not happening overnight, so preventive action is possible," he says.

Background for the results:

• A population-based cohort study. The study comprised 313,998 children (154,987 girls and 159,011 boys).

• Partners: Thorkild I. A. Sørensen, Jennifer L. Baker, Lars Ängquist and Line Klingen Gjærde from the University of Copenhagen and Kasper Adelborg, Anne Ording and Henrik Toft Sørensen from Aarhus University.

• The study was financed by the Program for Clinical Research Infrastructure from the Lundbeck Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and also the Aarhus University Research Foundation and the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.

• The scientific article can be read in the Journal of the American Heart Association

Contact

MD, PhD Jens Sundbøll
Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University and
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital
jens.sundboll@clin.au.dk
Tel.: (+45) 7845 2255