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Could ‘healthy’ teens be facing silent heart damage?
What’s especially alarming is that many of these young people look fit and are of a normal weight.
Millions of teenagers who appear perfectly healthy could, in fact, be quietly edging towards deadly heart conditions—all because of poor diets and a lack of exercise, experts have warned.
New research from the University of Eastern Finland reveals that teens with slightly raised blood sugar levels are significantly more likely to develop an enlarged heart. This condition, known as ventricular hypertrophy, hampers the heart’s ability to pump blood effectively and increases the risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
What’s especially alarming is that many of these young people look fit and are of a normal weight.
Professor Andrew Agbaje, who led the study, said:
“The findings further confirm that even healthy-looking adolescents and young adults who are mostly normal weight may be on a path towards cardiovascular diseases, if they have high blood glucose and insulin resistance.
“Surprisingly, we observed that high blood sugar may aggressively damage females’ hearts five times faster than males’—therefore, special attention should be paid to girls in terms of prevention.”
The research team analysed health data from 1,595 young volunteers aged 17 to 24, all part of the long-running ‘Children of the 90s’ study, based at the University of Bristol. They focused on whether blood sugar levels—still below what’s considered diabetic by NHS standards—could be silently damaging heart structure.
Their findings were striking. Teens with persistent fasting blood sugar of 5.6mmol/L or more had a 46% greater risk of developing left ventricular hypertrophy.
While the condition itself might not show immediate symptoms, over time it places enormous stress on the heart. That can lead to chest pain, breathlessness, palpitations, and—in some cases—fatal heart rhythms.
Other risk factors like family history, smoking and activity levels were accounted for, yet blood sugar still emerged as a clear culprit.
In the UK alone, more than 4.3 million people have diabetes, and nearly a million more likely have it but don’t know. Type 2 diabetes, once seen as a middle-age problem, is now worryingly common among the young—affecting 168,000 people under 40, with a 40% increase in cases since 2016.
As Professor Agbaje points out, once teens become more independent from their families, their lifestyle choices become even more crucial.
The NHS continues to urge people of all ages to cut back on sugary foods, stay active, and manage stress to help keep blood sugar levels in check.
