Twenty-three seems awfully young to start worrying about heart, kidney and metabolic disease.
Researchers have just provided a compelling reason not to wait.
A new study found that nearly 8 out of 10 young adults already showed signs of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome—and some were showing early signs of damage to their arteries.
Researchers looked at adults around age 23
The study examined 1,283 young adults with an average age of approximately 23. According to the American Heart Association, nearly 80% fell into stages 1 through 3 of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic, or CKM, syndrome.
Only about 21% were classified as stage 0, meaning they had none of the CKM risk factors being assessed.
Researchers weren’t simply finding theoretical risks. Young adults in more advanced CKM stages also showed evidence of early arterial injury.
None of the participants had reached stage 4, which involves diagnosed cardiovascular disease. But that’s precisely why the findings matter.
What exactly is CKM syndrome?
CKM syndrome is a relatively new way of looking at several health problems that physicians once tended to place into separate boxes.
Heart disease goes in one box. Diabetes goes in another. Kidney disease and obesity get their own categories. But these conditions constantly interact.
CKM syndrome recognizes that excess body fat, metabolic dysfunction, kidney disease and cardiovascular disease can be parts of the same biological process.
The American Heart Association introduced the CKM framework to help identify risk earlier—before someone develops a heart attack, stroke or advanced kidney disease.
- Stage 0 represents no CKM risk factors.
- Stage 1 can include excess or dysfunctional body fat.
- Stage 2 includes metabolic risk factors or kidney disease.
- Stage 3 involves very high cardiovascular risk or early cardiovascular disease without symptoms.
- Stage 4 is established cardiovascular disease.
Arteries may start changing decades before a heart attack
Heart disease is often treated like something that suddenly appears in middle age. It doesn’t. The processes leading to cardiovascular disease can begin much earlier.
The new research found signs of arterial injury even among people in their 20s.
Those with more advanced CKM syndrome also tended to score worse on the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8—the organization’s measures of cardiovascular health.
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Those eight areas include diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep, body weight, cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure.
The findings suggest that the health patterns established during adolescence and early adulthood may already be leaving measurable marks on the cardiovascular system.
Young doesn’t automatically mean metabolically healthy
A 23-year-old can look healthy, feel healthy and rarely visit a doctor. That doesn’t necessarily mean blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar or body composition are ideal.
Many early metabolic problems produce no symptoms whatsoever. You can feel perfectly fine while cardiovascular risk is quietly accumulating. That’s one reason routine preventive care matters even when nothing seems wrong.
Blood pressure checks and basic laboratory tests can identify abnormalities long before someone feels sick.
This study doesn’t mean 80% of young people have heart disease
That would be an alarming—and inaccurate—interpretation. Most participants were in the earlier CKM stages.
The study also examined a specific cohort, so the percentage shouldn’t automatically be applied to every 20-something in America.
Having an early CKM risk factor is not the same thing as having cardiovascular disease. In many ways, that’s the point.
Identifying risk while someone is young creates an opportunity to change its trajectory.
The basics suddenly look a lot less basic
There is no flashy secret to improving most of the factors researchers identified.
- Regular physical activity matters.
- Sleep matters.
- Not smoking matters.
- Blood pressure matters.
- Diet quality matters.
- Maintaining healthy blood sugar and cholesterol matters.
These recommendations may sound boring compared with the latest supplement or wellness trend.
But the boring stuff is remarkably powerful when practiced for decades rather than attempted after disease appears.
Final word
We often talk about heart disease as the bill that comes due after decades of unhealthy living. This research suggests the first charges may appear much sooner than we realize. Finding early metabolic risk in someone who is 23 isn’t necessarily bad news.
In one important sense, it’s an opportunity. The earlier risk appears, the more time there may be to change it.
Preventive health shouldn’t begin when someone reaches middle age. For many people, their arteries may have started the conversation years earlier.
