It’s never too early to start safeguarding heart health. Lesions in blood vessel walls that indicate atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) begin to develop in childhood, and having diabetes compounds heart risk. In fact, almost 70 percent of children with type 1 have at least one additional risk factor for heart disease, such as high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, low HDL (“good”) cholesterol, high triglycerides, or high blood pressure.

Regular exercise can diminish these risk factors, say researchers in an ongoing multicenter study of more than 23,000 children with type 1 in Germany and Austria. Researchers track the children through medical records, and children are grouped according to the number of times they exercise for 30 minutes or more per week. One group, the non-exercisers, does not engage in any regular physical activity. The moderately active group exercises once or twice a week. The highly active group exercises three or more times per week.

As of 2006, the non-exercisers were more likely to have high LDL, low HDL, and high triglycerides than children in the two exercise groups. Among non-exercisers, 41.2 percent had abnormal cholesterol compared with 36 percent in the moderately active group and 34.4 percent in the highly active group. Non-exercisers also had higher diastolic blood pressure and higher A1C levels. (Diastolic blood pressure is the bottom number on a blood pressure reading, which indicates the amount of pressure on blood vessel walls between heartbeats. The A1C averages blood glucose control over 3 months.)

In their conclusion, the researchers call for increased physical activity in schools and stress that children with type 1 should get regular exercise.

This study appeared in the August 2007 issue of Diabetes Care.