Childhood lifestyle and clinical determinants of adult ideal cardiovascular health: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study, the Princeton Follow-Up Study.
BACKGROUND
The American Heart Association recently defined ideal cardiovascular health by simultaneous presence of seven health behaviors and factors. The concept is associated with cardiovascular disease incidence, and cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. To effectively promote ideal cardiovascular health already early in life, childhood factors predicting future ideal cardiovascular health should be investigated. Our aim was thus to comprehensively explore childhood determinants of adult ideal cardiovascular health in population based cohorts from three continents.


METHODS
The sample comprised a total of 4409 participants aged 3-19 years at baseline from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study (YFS; N = 1883) from Finland, Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study (CDAH; N = 1803) from Australia and Princeton Follow-up Study (PFS; N = 723) from the United States. Participants were re-examined 19-31 years later when aged 30-48 years.


RESULTS
In multivariable analyses, independent childhood predictors of adult ideal cardiovascular health were family socioeconomic status (P < 0.01; direct association) and BMI (P < 0.001; inverse association) in all cohorts. In addition, blood pressure (P = 0.007), LDL-cholesterol (P < 0.001) and parental smoking (P = 0.006) in the YFS, and own smoking (P = 0.001) in CDAH were inversely associated with future ideal cardiovascular health.


CONCLUSIONS
Among several lifestyle and clinical indicators studied, higher family socioeconomic status and non-smoking (parental/own) in childhood independently predict ideal cardiovascular health in adulthood. As atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases are rooted in childhood, our findings suggest that special attention could be paid to children who are from low socioeconomic status families, and who smoke or whose parents smoke, to prevent cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality.
Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Electronic address: tomi.laitinen@utu.fi.
Tomi T
TT
Laitinen
Katja
K
Pahkala
Alison
A
Venn
Jessica G
JG
Woo
Mervi
M
Oikonen
Terence
T
Dwyer
Vera
V
Mikkilä
Nina
N
Hutri-Kähönen
Kylie J
KJ
Smith
Seana L
SL
Gall
John A
JA
Morrison
Jorma S A
JS
Viikari
Olli T
OT
Raitakari
Costan G
CG
Magnussen
Markus
M
Juonala
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009515:New Jersey; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
Cardiovascular diseases; Children; Epidemiology; Prevention; Risk factors