Childhood Obesity Tied to Cardiometabolic Disease at Age 30 Years

MONDAY, March 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Children with metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) have an increased associated risk for cardiometabolic diseases in young adulthood, according to a study published online March 23 in JAMA Pediatrics.Resthie R. Putri, Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues examined whether children with MHO have an increased risk in long-term cardiometabolic outcomes. The analysis included 7,275 children (age 7 to 17 years) identified from the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register (1997 to 2020) and 35,636 general population comparators.The researchers found that at baseline, MHO was present in 49.8 percent of children with obesity, while 50.2 percent had metabolically unhealthy obesity (MUO). By age 30 years, cumulative incidences for type 2 diabetes were 9.1 percent for MHO, 16.8 percent for MUO, and 0.5 percent for the general population; for hypertension, cumulative incidences were 10.8, 18.3, and 3.7 percent, respectively; and for dyslipidemia, cumulative incidences were 5.3, 12.7, and 0.9 percent, respectively. The incidence of all three cardiometabolic outcomes improved with a reduction of at least 0.25 in the body mass index z score (type 2 diabetes: incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.22; hypertension: IRR, 0.56; and dyslipidemia: IRR, 0.28). Similar risk reduction was seen for both MHO and MUO."There has been a debate about whether children with normal blood and liver values and normal blood pressure might not need treatment for their obesity," Claude Marcus, Ph.D., also from the Karolinska Institutet, said in a statement. "Our results suggest that all children with obesity need treatment, even if they appear completely healthy upon examination."Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.Abstract/Full Text.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Childhood Obesity Tied to Cardiometabolic Disease at Age 30 Years

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