Crianças com corações de adultos

Abstract

The pace of the world has accelerated. Over the past 200 years, what once was a civilization centered primarily in the household economy, governed by the pace of the natural growth of animals and plants, became a frantic and globalized world, where there is no time for considering or following an organic pace.Our children and grandchildren were born in this information-loaded world. They are intimate with the Internet, remote controls and various types of electronic games, and we even feel a twinge of jealousy of their familiarity in dealing with all these stimuli. At the same time, we are relieved and proud to see that they look more suited to this new reality than we are. By analogy with technology, they seem to be "new versions of human beings"-more intelligent, versatile, adaptable and resistant to such a load of information.Is this, however, the best legacy we can leave them, who, after all, are human beings governed by a genetic material that adapts more slowly than their brilliant minds? Apparently not. As an example of this, we have the pandemic of obesity and its comorbidities, which seem to affect this new generation earlier and more seriously, as discussed in the study entitled "Variability in heart rate, lipids and physical capacity of obese and nonobese children" 1 . Similarly, we have problems that previously were not even contemplated during childhood, such as those related to the high yield hearts of athletes, as discussed in the study entitled "Competitive Sport in children and adolescents: should pre-participation examination, and electrocardiogram be required?" In order to prepare our offspring for an increasingly competitive world-or to raise gifted athletes, perhaps in an attempt to make our own childhood dreams come true-we accelerate the aging of their cardiovascular system. It is believed that this will be the first generation in history to fail to outlive its parent generation 2 , and there is a global concern with the probable burden on health systems in coming decades, if no control of cardiovascular risks is achieved at population level.