Overweight teens, tomorrow's heart attacks

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Increases in heart disease and premature death are projected as today's overweight teens grow older, a U.S. study warns.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, projects a 16 percent increase in heart disease by 2035.

"Today's adolescents are the young adults of tomorrow -- young adults who would ordinarily be working, raising their families and not worried about heart disease until they are much older," said lead study author Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco. "Our study suggests that more of these young adults will have heart disease when they are 35 to 50 years old, resulting in more hospitalizations, medical procedures, need for chronic medications, missed work days and shortened life expectancy."

A team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Columbia University Medical Center in New York used a computer-based statistical modeling system known as the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model to estimate the potential impact of an increasingly overweight U.S. adolescent population on future adult health nationwide.

Childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1970, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports.