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Childhood origins of endothelial dysfunction

Vascular Physiology Unit, Department of Cardiology, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Julian P J Halcox
Vascular Physiology Unit, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guildford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK; j.halcox@ich.ucl.ac.uk

Abbreviations: ALSPAC, Avon longitudinal study of parents and children; EPC, endothelial progenitor cell; FMD, flow mediated dilation; NO, nitric oxide

Keywords: endothelial dysfunction; nitric oxide

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic vascular inflammatory disease, characterised by lipid accumulation, and cellular infiltration and proliferation in the arterial wall. Vascular endothelial dysfunction plays a critical role in the initiation and progression of the atherosclerotic process; the development of techniques that allow detection of endothelial function and early structural vascular disease has allowed major advances in understanding the pathophysiology at all stages of the disease process. Clinical investigation of endothelial function in children and young adults is informative. Postmortem studies demonstrating the presence of atherosclerotic lesions from as early as the first decade of life have shown that disease burden is directly associated with the extent of exposure to conventional risk factors, even at this early stage.¹ Longitudinal studies have also demonstrated that this interaction between risk factors and abnormal arterial biology predicts adverse long term cardiovascular outcome. Furthermore, risk factors tend to cluster together and persist from childhood into . . . [Full text of this article]