Researchers said on Tuesday that there is greater risk for obese children to develop clogged arteries just like in middle-aged adults. Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine and Children's Mercy Hospital, stated that if this happens the children can also experience heart attacks or strokes just like the 30-year-old adults.

Raghuveer led the study and added that the findings are very dramatic. She presented the research together with her colleagues during an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Ultrasounds were used to measure the inner walls of the neck arteries of nearly 70 obese children.

The children were aged averaged 13 years old and they actually had the health problems of a 45-year-old grown-up. The researchers said that the obesity problem in children has reached a high number worldwide. And this is the main cause for so many cardiovascular diseases in such a young age.

The 70 children tracked by Raghuveer’s team had high levels of low-density lipoprotein, which represents the “bad cholesterol” and low levels of high-density lipoprotein, which is exactly the “good cholesterol.” The researchers checked the thickness of the inner lining of the carotid arteries, as to see which the exact problems were.

As Raghuveer said, the team wanted to see “their vascular age.” And these children had a very high vascular age for their chronological age. The main cause of the advanced vascular age is mostly given by obesity and high triglyceride levels, the researchers concluded. And this can lead to death because of heart attacks that such a young heart can’t take.