Body mass index is positively related to coronary heart disease risk from childhood onwards
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A systematic review of published studies relating body mass index (BMI) between age 2 and 30 years to later coronary heart disease (CHD) risk was conducted to examine the relationship between BMI before age 30 and CHD risk in later life. Relative risks of CHD associated with a 1-standard deviation higher BMI were independently extracted by two authors. A total of 15 studies totalling 731,337 participants and 23,894 CHD events were included in the analysis. BMI in early childhood (2-6 years) showed a weak inverse association with CHD risk, whereas BMI in later childhood and early adult life were both positively related to later CHD risk. These results were unaffected by adjustments for social class, cigarette smoking, blood pressure and total cholesterol. Gender and year of birth had little effect on these associations. According to these observational findings, BMI is positively related to CHD risk from childhood onwards. Therefore, long-term management of excess BMI from childhood onwards may contribute to reduce adult CHD risk.
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