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Overweight and obese youth are at greater risk for two serious diseases -- pancreatic cancer and cardiovascular disease -- according to two new studies.

The first study compared the childhood weights of 841 pancreatic cancer patients to 754 healthy people:

• Those who were overweight from ages 14 to 39 years old were 67 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer.
• People who were overweight between ages 20 to 49 years old increased their risk by 2.5 times.
• This study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The second study was from The Nemours Children's Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

• Dr. Nelly Mauras and her colleagues found that obese children as young as seven years old were at higher risk for future cardiovascular disease and stroke.
• They compared 115 obese children to 87 lean children, all of whom had normal fasting blood sugar levels, normal blood pressure, and normal cholesterol levels.
• The obese children had elevated levels of certain proteins and other markers for cardiovascular disease

The old thinking was that cardiovascular disease is associated with a cluster of symptoms called metabolic syndrome. These symptoms include high blood pressure, high levels of bad cholesterol, low levels of good cholesterol, and high blood glucose.

Dr. Mauras and her team wanted to know if obesity could raise cardiovascular disease risk before metabolic old syndrome develops. "The results were striking because the children were entirely healthy otherwise," she said while presenting the study during the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society.

Labels: research, cancer, heart_disease, overweight children

Posted By: Aspen/CRC