Weight Alone Raises Heart Disease Risk
Reported September 12, 2007
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Overweight people who think they can eliminate their risk for heart disease just by treating high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels with drugs might do well to think again.
A new study reveals a higher risk for heart conditions even in overweight and obese people who don’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, leading investigators to conclude treating these conditions can’t completely make up for the extra pounds.
The study is based on a review of 21 previous studies involving more than 300,000 people. After adjusting the findings to take factors like age, sex, physical activity and smoking into account, overweight people had a 32-percent increased risk of heart disease when compared to people with normal weights. People classified as obese had an 81-percent higher risk.
Noting high blood pressure and high cholesterol are two key risk factors for heart disease, the researchers then adjusted the findings further to take those two conditions into account. While overweight and obese people without these conditions were less likely to have heart disease than those with them, they were still significantly more likely to have heart problems than normal weight people — 17-percent more likely for overweight people and 49-percent more likely for obese people.
Overall, the risk for heart problems went up by 29 percent for each five additional units of body mass index before adjusting for high blood pressure and high cholesterol and 16 percent after.
The authors note nearly two-thirds of Americans are now classified as overweight, and the problem is growing worldwide.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2007;167:1720-1728