{"id":95278,"date":"2019-03-13T14:26:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T18:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=95278"},"modified":"2019-10-05T10:23:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T14:23:41","slug":"new-battle-veterans-likely-heart-disease-ucf-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/new-battle-veterans-likely-heart-disease-ucf-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Battle: Veterans More Likely to Have Heart Disease, UCF Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the war is over, veterans face a new threat. They are more likely to have heart disease at a younger age than nonveterans, and this could herald a new health crisis on the horizon.<\/p>\n

These results are published in a new University of Central Florida study appearing in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s sort of the first indications of a coming public health crisis for veterans,\u201d says Ramon Hinojosa, an assistant professor in UCF\u2019s Department of Sociology and the study\u2019s author. \u201cBecause of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have a relatively large, new, younger generation of veterans who are going to survive for 30 or 40 years after their war experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study indicates that perhaps the \u201chealthy-soldier effect\u201d is no longer guaranteed. The effect refers to the tendency for active-duty service members to be more physically fit and less overweight than same-age, nonmilitary individuals. It\u2019s a phenomenon that Hinojosa explores in ongoing research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome of the analysis suggested that not only does the healthy-soldier effect not seem as potent as it once was, in fact, what I see is veterans tend to have cardiovascular morbidity earlier than nonveterans, and they tend to have a greater number of conditions,\u201d Hinojosa says.<\/p>\n

“Veterans tend to have cardiovascular morbidity earlier than nonveterans, and they tend to have a greater number of conditions.\u201d \u2014 Ramon Hinojosa, assistant sociology professor<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The researcher says the change could be due to the nature of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, modern warfare, changing diets, changing approaches to leisure and exercise, higher rates of obesity in younger veterans than nonveterans at the same age, and higher rates of drinking, smoking and mental illness.<\/p>\n

In light of these results, Hinojosa says it is important for health practitioners to look closely at cardiovascular health for younger veterans so they can address preventative approaches to ward off early onset of cardiovascular diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that being aware we sort of have the first rumblings of what seems to be a health crisis will help us focus our attention on health resources and providing younger veterans with access to resources that can help them ameliorate the likelihood of early onset cardiovascular disease,\u201d Hinojosa says.<\/p>\n

The study used data from the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative health survey of individuals in the United States that\u2019s conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s National Center for Health Statistics.<\/p>\n

Hinojosa looked at five particular cardiovascular conditions reported in the survey and their association with veteran status and sociodemographic status, including age.<\/p>\n