Overweight and obese individuals face greater cardiovascular morbidity

February 28, 2018|Cardiology News

FROM JAMA CARDIOLOGY

Obese individuals have shorter life spans and spend significantly more time dealing with the burden of cardiovascular morbidity than do normal-weight individuals, according to a U.S. population-based study.

In a report published online Feb. 28 in JAMA Cardiology, researchers presented an analysis of pooled data from 190,672 participants and 3.2 million person-years of follow-up in 10 prospective cohort studies, including the Framingham Heart Study, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

SandraMatic/Thinkstock

Overweight and obese middle-aged and older adults had a significantly higher cumulative lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease events and cardiovascular death compared with adults with normal body mass index (BMI). The lifetime risk was also higher among young men and women who were obese and morbidly obese – but not those who were overweight – compared with young men and women of normal weight.

Incident cardiovascular events occurred in 37% of overweight middle-aged men and 28% of overweight middle-aged women. In obese middle-aged men and women, those figures were 47% and 39%, respectively, and in the morbidly obese they were 65% and 48%. By comparison, incident cardiovascular events occurred in 32% of middle-aged men of normal BMI, and 22% of women.