January 18, 2024- Young adults who reported higher stress during their teenage years to adulthood were more likely to have high blood pressure, obesity and other cardiometabolic risk factors than their peers who reported less stress, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Cardiometabolic risk factors often occur together and are a significant cause of cardiovascular disease. These include obesity, Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, researchers noted.
Childhood adversities affect cardiometabolic health across the life course, and interventions that improve early exposures may be more appropriate than interventions for cardiovascular disease risk factor effects later in life, according to a 2017 American Heart Association Scientific Statement: Childhood and Adolescent Adversity and Cardiometabolic Outcomes. In recent decades, researchers have found that perceived stress is a risk factor for cardiometabolic health conditions.