Heart Diseases Caused by Diet at the Age of 3

What the child eats at the age of 3 determines the risk of heart disease for the rest of his/her life. This is the conclusion drawn by the researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Canadian researchers have found out how the diet of three-year-old kids influences their susceptibility to the development of heart disease in future. This is due to the fact that the impact of unhealthy diets is noticeable at an early age. The symptoms of high cholesterol are observed among the children aged three to five years. Therefore, the parents should do everything to protect the future health of their children at this stage of their development.

The researchers from Toronto studied the health of 1076 pre-school children to establish a link between the child’s diet and the level of high density lipoprotein (HDL) in plasma, which is an indicator of the risk of subsequent cardiovascular diseases. It turns out that the diet affects this risk even at an early age: there was an increase of HDL in three-year-old children caused by the unhealthy diet. In this case, the scientists took into account other factors, such as the baby’s sex, birth weight, body mass index of the parents, congenital diabetes, and ethnicity.

According to the researchers, doctors, nutritionists and parents should adjust the baby’s diet as early as possible. The child must be provided with healthy food. On the other hand, the foods (fat, flour and sugar) that raise the level of cholesterol should be avoided. It certainly does not mean that a three-year-old child should not eat ice cream or cakes. One simply needs to be moderate, and the children’s diet must be focused on healthy foods.