The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members families of how they died.
The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time.
“Earlier autopsy studies… were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people,” said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health.
The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained.
Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span.
Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members whod been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage.
Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.