Food insecurity in early adulthood raises the risk of heart disease, long-term study shows
People with food insecurity as young adults had a 41% higher risk of developing heart disease in middle age, a long-running study found.
Start with a snapshot: Adults without reliable access to nutritious food are more likely to have heart disease than adults who don’t struggle to eat well. But which comes first, the food insecurity or the illness? Heart attacks or heart failure don’t develop overnight, so figuring out the chain of events means panning out for the long view.
A new analysis did just that, following people who had no heart disease in their late 30s or early 40s to see how their access to food might relate to their heart health 20 years later. The cohort study’s results, published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology, show people with food insecurity had a 41% higher risk of developing heart disease in middle age compared to people with a secure source of food. That association held up after accounting for other influences, such as race or education.
