Promoting an optimal profile of risk in adolescents: An important step in cardiovascular diseases prevention

Background. In the last 30 years, considerable progresses were done in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention. Risk factors were classified in predisposing factors that can not be modified and, risk factors that can be modified. In this frame, it appears that a primordial correct prevention could determine a change of distribution in population towards a higher prevalence of persons with an optimum profile of risk. Such approach could lead to the decline of cardiovascular disease epidemic.
Purpose. The present study attempt to realize a simple and operative definition of optimum risk profile in adolescents and, on this basis, the assessment of the magnitude of risk in a sample of clinical healthy adolescents.
Material and methods. Cardiovascular risk factors were studied on a sample of 591 healthy subjects, 15 to 18 years old. The individual investigation of subjects was performed by interview, anthropometrical, physiometrical methods and laboratory analyses. Results. 43.05% girls and 34.67% boys were identified with an optimum profile of risk factors. The stratified analyze, by gender and age, showed a decrease of  the percentage of subjects with optimum profile of risk factors with ageing, more marked in males, from 43.27% at age 15 to 31.25% at age 18, pleading for a gradually worsening of risk profile with ageing. Smoking, was responsible in the present study, for the framing in the profile of increased risk of 12.5% girls and 18.4% boys.
Conclusions.  The adolescence appears as a stage in which the strategies of primordial prevention are still timely. In this frame, the programs for tobacco control in children and adolescents appear as an important strategy in cardiovascular disease prevention, starting with young ages. An other important step that is outlined in the strategy of promoting an optimum profile of risk is the maintenance of a desirable body weight.