| Atherosclerosis Begins In Adolescence WESTPORT, Feb 24 (Reuters Health) - Atherosclerosis begins as young as age 15, indicating that primary prevention of the disease should begin even earlier, according to researchers for the Pathobiological Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth study. Dr. Jack P. Strong, of Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, and a multicenter team performed autopsies on 2,876 individuals between the ages of 15 and 34 who died of external causes to document the extent of atherosclerosis in this age group. Atherosclerotic lesions were apparent in even the youngest subjects, those aged 15 to 19 years, in whom the investigators detected intimal lesions in 100% of the aortas and more than 50% of the right coronary arteries. These lesions "...increased in prevalence and extent with age through the oldest age group." Fatty streaks tended to be more extensive in black individuals, whereas raised lesions were similar in blacks and whites. Raised lesions in the aortas were also similar in young men and women, but raised lesions of the right coronary artery were "less" in women than in men, the investigators report in the February 24th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. JAMA 1999;281:727-735. (Journal of the American Medical Association) |
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