1 in 3 Men in Their 30s Already Have This Silent Disease. By 70, Almost Everyone Does.
Death, taxes, and atherosclerosis.
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A groundbreaking study of nearly 17,000 adults in Denmark and Spain has revealed the surprising prevalence of atherosclerosis—a condition involving plaque buildup in arteries—at much younger ages than previously documented. Researchers led by cardiologists Henning Bundgaard and Borja Ibáñez discovered that over half of participants aged 18 to 70 showed signs of this silent disease through imaging scans of their carotid, femoral, and coronary arteries. The condition develops without symptoms for years or decades, making it difficult to detect through conventional health assessments alone.
The age and gender patterns revealed by the REACT study proved particularly striking. Among men in their 30s, approximately one-third already exhibited detectable plaque in their arteries, compared to just over one-fifth of women in the same age group. Men generally developed atherosclerosis roughly 5 to 10 years earlier than women, though women experienced steeper increases during middle age. By ages 60 to 70, the findings were dramatic: fewer than 2 percent of men and 8 percent of women showed no detectable plaque whatsoever.
Beyond prevalence rates, the disease’s extent grew substantially with age. Among those in their 30s, plaque appeared in multiple arterial territories in only a small fraction of participants. However, by age 60 to 70, over half of men showed plaque across all three examined territories. The researchers emphasized that early detection through imaging could identify individuals at elevated long-term risk when preventive interventions would be most beneficial, contrasting sharply with current approaches relying solely on traditional risk factor estimates.
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Originally reported by Sciencealert →
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