A living experiment has been conducted by medical researchers aiming to unlock the secrets of adult disease.
The lead researcher said one of the surprising outcomes was that obese children could reverse the health impacts if they lost weight.
The Menzies institute has been running clinics in Tasmania and Victoria involving hundreds of people who were first studied three decades ago as school kids.
The study, known as the Childhood Determinants of Adult Heath, was initially designed to give a snapshot of the health of Australian school children.
But it provided so much information researchers decided to track down as many participants as possible in 2000 to check their adult health.
Researchers said they would use the results to discover the connections between childhood and adult health.
The researchers said the human guinea pigs may hold the answers to better treatment of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
Thirty years later many of the participants have been called back in for another unusual school reunion.
Kirrily Moore, 43, is one of the 8,498 Australians who took part in a health and fitness test in 1985.
“I was actually in Albury in NSW and I was 15 [years old] in the Scots school Albury,” she said.
“I was just a new boarder… I don’t remember much of the tests except for running around the oval.”
Former participants urged to rejoin study as adults
Professor Alison Venn from the Menzies Research Institute of Tasmania is leading the third round of testing.
“It’s really very exciting to see people come back into the clinic… these are people that came from 109 schools all around Australia,” she said.
Colin Taylor is another participant who admitted he was nervous his smoking had put his health at risk.
“I have the family nagging at me to give up so I should do the right thing for myself as well,” he said.
“At the moment I am still smoking and looking forward to the next one.”
Professor Venn said some surprising outcomes were beginning to emerge.
“For those overweight and obese children who managed to avoid becoming obese adults their cardiovascular and diabetes risk looked pretty much the same as those children who had never been overweight or obese.”
Professor Tom Marwick said he hoped the study would lead to a breakthrough in diagnosing damage to the heart and arteries before someone has symptoms.
“There’s some early changes of heart function that tells us that the heart is beginning to get into trouble while the patient is still asymptomatic and feeling fine,” he said.
The Menzies Institute has called for anyone who was poked and prodded 30 years ago to rejoin its living experiment.