Does Atherosclerosis Begin in Childhood?

Dear Colleagues,

Many years ago, American forensic doctors who performed autopsies on young soldiers who died in the Vietnam War were surprised to see that at such an early age, many of those young people presented a high number of atherosclerotic plaques. Today we know that the development of the atheromatous plaque is a multifactorial process in which inflammation plays a very important role. The key aspect of the plaque formation is the endothelial dysfunction secondary to some atherogenic stimuli, such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes, but also bad nutritional habits.

In this sense, the WHO a few years ago warned that the first world population consumed an excess of Omega 6 fatty acids in relation to Omega 3 (50:1 ratio, when at most it should be 5:1). This abnormal ratio leads to a permanent inflammatory condition. This is particularly marked in children due to the eating habits they present. The resulting inflammation leads to mitochondrial dysfunction increasing the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and endothelial dysfunction. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to think that the development of atheromatous plaques can already begin in childhood. The consequences of it would be the appearance, in the medium or long term, of cardiovascular diseases: arterial occlusions leading to myocardial infarction, or stroke, or claudication or critical limb ischemia. 

In order to clarify whether this hypothesis is correct, this Special Issue will collect manuscripts related to this topic.

Prof. Dr. Jesús Devesa
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Reports is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.