A new study has found that obese children as young as 8 years old can show signs of heart disease and abnormalities in heart muscles, according to a report released Tuesday by the American Heart Association.
A team of researchers compared magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests of 20 obese kids and 20 normal weight kids, and they found two manifestations of heart disease in obese kids: their hearts had 12 percent thicker muscles compared to the normal weight kids, and their left ventricles had 27 percent more muscle mass. The researchers identified 40 percent of the obese kids as "high risk" because of the their thickened heart muscles, which impaired the heart's pumping ability.
Some of the obese kids had health problems like high blood pressure and asthma, while others suffered from depression. Seven of them were in their teens, and five of these had BMIs of over 35.
"Ultimately we hope that the effects we see in the hearts of these children are reversible; however, it is possible that there could be permanent damage. This should be further motivation for parents to help children lead a healthy lifestyle," lead study author Linyuan Jing, researcher at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., said in a news release.
A number of obese kids did not go through imaging because they could not fit in the MRI machine. Jing said that this could mean the results of their study could have been underestimated because the largest kids were excluded.
The researchers reported that although not all the obese kids in the study showed signs of heart disease, seeing these signs in kids as young as 8 years old was alarming.
"This implies that obese children even younger than 8 years old likely have signs of heart disease too," Jing said. "This was alarming to us. Understanding the long-term ramifications of this will be critical as we deal with the impact of the pediatric obesity epidemic."
The report was presented at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, Scientific Sessions 2015, which was held in Orlando, Fla.
