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WORLD / Health
Being overweight is hard on the heart
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-17 11:07
WEDNESDAY - A new study involving more than 300,000 people finds that
being overweight independently increases a person's risk of coronary
disease.
In other words, even if doctors could get an overweight person's blood
pressure and cholesterol down to normal, that patient would still be at
higher heart risk.
The Dutch analysis involved data from 21 previous studies that included
more than 302,000 people.
Of those people, 18,000 suffered heart events or deaths during the
studies. After factoring in age, sex, physical activity levels and
smoking, the team concluded that moderately overweight people had a 32
percent increased risk of heart disease and obese people an 81 percent
increased risk compared to those who weren't overweight.
The researchers, from the National Institute for Public Health and the
Environment, in Bilthoven, The Netherlands, then adjusted further for
blood pressure and cholesterol levels. They found that this reduced the
increased risk of heart disease among moderately overweight people to 17
percent, and to 49 percent for obese people.
Before adjusting for blood pressure and cholesterol, every five units of
body mass index (BMI) increase was associated with a 29 percent increased
risk for heart disease. After adjusting for blood pressure and
cholesterol, there was still a 16 percent increased risk for every five
units of BMI increase.
"Hence, the present study indicates that adverse effects of overweight on
blood pressure and cholesterol levels could account for about 45 percent
of the increased risk of coronary heart disease, and that there is still
a significantly increased risk of coronary heart disease that is
independent of these effects," wrote the study authors.
"This implies that, even under the theoretical scenario that optimal
treatment would be available against hypertension and
hypercholesterolemia in overweight persons, they would still have an
elevated risk of coronary heart disease," the researchers say.
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