Youth psychological distress and intermediary markers of risk for CVD: the emerging field of pediatric psychocardiology

Cardiovascular medicine has increasingly recognized the childhood origins of adult cardiovascular disease (CVD), and accordingly, primordial prevention strategies in children are becoming more common place (Lloyd-Jones et al., 2010). This is perhaps most evident in terms of intervention efforts aimed at the prevention and treatment of CVD risk factors including, childhood obesity [4,6,13–15] and physical inactivity [11,18]. Given the emerging recognition that psychological distress can influence CVD risk, both directly, via inducing physiological change that can negatively impact the integrity of the cardiovascular system [1,5,8], and indirectly, by influencing the adoption of health risk behaviours [9,12,19], primordial prevention strategies may benefit from considering the role of psychological distress in CVD development earlier in the life course.