Stability of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in Portuguese children and adolescents from the Porto Area [Estabilidade de factores de risco das doenças cardiovasculares numa amostra de crianças e adolescentes Portugueses da área do Grande Porto]

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2003

Authors

S. Guerra (Author) FADEUP; A. Teixeira Pinto (Author) FMUP; J. Ribeiro (Author) FADEUP; J. Oliveira (Author) FADEUP; J. Duarte (Author) FADEUP; J. Mota (Author) FADEUP

Journal

Title: Boletim da Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia

Vol. 22

Pages: 167-182

ISSN: 0304-4750

Publisher: Sociedade Portuguesa De Cardiologia

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge

Scopus - 5 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-007-ATG

Abstract (EN): An important aspect of preventive medicine is to identify subjects at risk as soon as possible, so preventive strategies can be introduced at early ages. The justification for this strategy is twofold: firstly, the assumption that children maintain a particular high value of a risk factor for disease throughout life; and secondly, the assumption that lowering the level of the risk factor in early life will have a greater impact on the disease than will risk factor changes in later life. In epidemiology the analysis of such factors over time is referred to as tracking. Tracking analysis has been applied to risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in pediatric years. The aims of this study were: I) to analyze the stability of biological risk factors [high blood pressure (BP), high percentage of fat mass (%FM) and high total cholesterol (TC)] and lifestyle risk factors [low physical activity index (PAI)] in isolation; and II) to analyze the stability of zero, one, two or three biological risk factors. There were two evaluations in 692 children and adolescents (325 boys and 367 girls), aged between 8 and 15 years. The quartiles, adjusted for age and gender, were the criterion used to identify subjects with biological risk factors (fourth quartile) and with lifestyle risk factors (first quartile) for CVD. The stability was calculated through the relative frequency of subjects who maintained or changed quartile between the two evaluations. There is stability for biological risk factors as well as for behavioral and/or lifestyle risk factors. However, the highest stability is seen in biological risk factors.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 16