After years of declining rates of coronary artery disease, new research shows the trend is reversing among younger people, especially women.
The culprit may be the rise in obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure rates among young adults, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver looked at 17 years of data from 12,519 people. The participants were men under 50 and women under 55 who were diagnosed for the first time with premature heart disease — specifically coronary artery disease. That’s when plaque, made up of fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances in the blood, blocks arteries and limits blood flow to the heart.
Rather than going down, the rates of heart
