How Your Heart Health Today Is Affected by Your Childhood Neighbourhood

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, if you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or have suffered a heart attack or stroke, it may be partly due to the neighbourhood that you grew up in.

This is not 100% foolproof, but children growing up in specific neighbourhoods seem to be at a much higher risk of these diseases later on in life.

Research was collected and information related to the socioeconomic conditions of 1,477 Australian families was analysed together with the socioeconomic characteristics of the neighbourhoods in which they lived.

Socioeconomic information includes financial income and the occupation and education of parents.

To assess the effects of these conditions on heart health, researchers measured the thickness of the kid’s right carotid artery when they were between 11 and 12 years old.

Adults with thicker carotid artery walls have been found to be at a greater risk for heart attacks and strokes than other adults, so this is a good way to examine whether this risk factor started in the childhoods of poorer children.

They found that children who grew up both in families and neighbourhoods with poor socio-economic conditions had thicker arterial walls than kids who grew up in wealthier families and neighbourhoods did. The family’s socio-economic circumstances played a much larger role.

Children in the poorest 25% of families were 46% more likely to have thick arterial walls than their wealthier peers.

In addition, they discovered that poverty at age two to three made it more likely that kids would have thick arterial walls at age 11-12.

Exposure to second-hand smoke, blood pressure and body weight did not cause this finding, since the conclusion remained the same when these factors were excluded as possible explanations.

Based on other studies conducted, the scientists argued that children from poorer homes suffered from more infections and more inflammation than wealthier kids.

Regardless of your social situation as a child, you can lower your blood pressure below 120/80 – starting today – using this 9-minute trick…

Or if your cholesterol is too high, learn how to get it under control by cutting out just one ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…