Hormone at heart of problem

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 21

Hormone at heart of problem

Researchers have identified a hormone that may show which children are likely to have heart disease later in life, thus allowing more effective means of prevention of this leading killer.

It has been known for some time that children with the greatest risk of high blood pressure, a condition that can contribute to heart attacks and strokes, arcthose who have relatively more body fat and who reach sexual maturity earlier, says Solomon Katz of the University of Pennsylvania. He and other researchers have now found that a hormone called Dheas is elevated in these highrisk children.

The scientists also found that a specific pattern of body fat in

which relatively more fat is stored in the trunk rather than extremities is also linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure in later life. "Dheas was measured in children 11 to 14,” Professor Katz says "and was elevated in those who displayed other risk factors for high blood pressure. "There may be a direct association between these rises in hormone and rises in blood pressure. Children who have more fat at this sensitive period tend to rises of this

hormone than other children.” The full name of the hormone, produced by the adrenal gland, is Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulphate. Professor Katz emphasises that not all children who are heavy and who reach sexual maturity earlier will go on to have high blood pressure. “They merely have a higher risk than others.” The risk is probably most significant for those children in the top 25 per cent when ranked by amount of body fat, he adds. Professor Katzan anthropol-

ogist, not a doctor, and his research is part of a growing field of study that attempts to explain the prevalence of diseases of civilisation, such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, which tend to be more common in Western societies.

Kenneth Weiss of Pennsylvania State University, for example, is trying to determine why American Indians have an almost 100 per cent risk of getting diabetes if they live to an advanced age.

Indians also have high ijates of

gall bladder disease and gall bladder cancer, which is usually fatal because it is generally not discovered until an advanced stage.

Diabetes and gall bladder disease, including gall stones, are related to diet, Dr Weiss adds. Researchers do not know why these diseases are so common in Indians, but the hypothesis is

that Indians have some genetic characteristic that predisposes them to these diseases when they adopt Western diets. “That may explain why the disease has risen so dramatically since the Second World War,” he says. “The American diet has changed greatly since then, particularly in the increased availability of processed foods.

"Researchers now think the diseases are caused merely by too many calories, but it may turn out that particular foods, saturated fats, for example, or refined carbohydrates such as white sugar, are responsible.”

By

PAUL RAEBURN,

Associated

Press, Philadelphia