Pediatric metabolic syndrome predicts CVD in later life

The cardiovascular risk factors that contribute to the metabolic syndrome are associated with future cardiovascular disease (CVD) in adults; however, it is not known whether the presence of these risk factors in childhood predicts CVD in adult life.
Children aged 5–19 years were evaluated for lipid characteristics, BMI, blood chemistry values, blood pressure and family history of CVD in the initial LRC study period. The PFS established the CVD status of 771 participants from the initial study.
The mean age of participants in the PFS was 38.4 years. Of the 31 patients who had pediatric metabolic syndrome in the LRC study, six (19.4%) experienced CVD during the intervening period compared with an incidence of 1.5% for participants who did not have metabolic syndrome in childhood. Multivariate analysis showed that pediatric metabolic syndrome (odds ratio [OR] 14.7, P <0.0001) and age at follow-up (OR 1.2, P = 0.03) were significant predictors of CVD, whereas sex, race and family history of cardiovascular disease were not.
Pediatric metabolic syndrome predicts CVD during the subsequent 25 years of life. This results highlight the importance of preventative interventions in childhood and early adult life, particularly with regards to weight and BMI control.