(01-03-11) Obesity Alone Raises Risk of Fatal Heart Attack, Study Finds

MONDAY, Feb. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Obese men face a dramatically higher risk
of dying from a heart attack, regardless of whether or not they have other
known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, a new study reveals.

The finding stems from an analysis involving roughly 6,000 middle-aged men,
and it suggests that there is something about carrying around excess weight
that contributes to heart disease independent of risk factors such as high
blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and arterial disease.

What exactly that something is, however, remains unclear, although the
researchers suggest that the chronic inflammation that typically accompanies
significant weight gain might be the driving force behind the increased risk.

"Obese, middle-aged men have a 60 percent increased risk of dying from a heart
attack than non-obese middle-aged men, even after we cancel out any of the
effects of cholesterol, blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors,"
noted study author Jennifer Logue, a clinical lecturer of metabolic medicine
with the British Heart Foundation's Cardiovascular Research Centre at the
University of Glasgow, in Scotland. "This means [that] obesity itself may be
causing fatal heart attacks through a factor that we have not yet identified."

Logue and her colleagues report their observations in the Feb. 15 online issue
of Heart.

To explore the subject, the authors spent nearly 15 years tracking 6,082 male
patients who were diagnosed with high cholesterol but had no history of either
heart disease or diabetes.

Over the study period, the research team noted 214 heart disease fatalities,
along with another 1,027 heart attacks and/or strokes that did not result in
death.

The team confirmed the well-established theory that being obese is linked to a
greater chance for having all of the classic risk factors linked to heart
disease.

That said, even after ruling out relevant variables such as age and smoking
history, the risk of death among obese men -- those with a body mass index
(BMI) between 30 and 39.9 -- was still 75 percent higher than it was for non-
obese men.

What's more, even after also accounting for risk factors such as high blood
pressure and diabetes (as well as medication history), the chance of
experiencing a fatal heart attack was 60 percent greater among obese men, as
compared with non-obese men.

The one caveat: in and of itself, being obese was not linked to a higher risk
of experiencing a non-fatal heart attack or stroke.

Logue cautioned that further research is needed to confirm the findings, and
to uncover the exact mechanism by which obesity itself is a risk factor for
fatal heart attacks.

"Possible reasons include particular chemicals that the fat cells are
releasing. Or perhaps it is related to the fact that obese people tend to have
larger hearts to cope with the additional stress of their larger size, and this
already stressed heart does not manage to continue to work during a heart
attack," she said.

"However, it certainly makes me think that we cannot just treat cholesterol,
blood pressure and diabetes in obese men without also considering their
weight," Logue added. "We need to find easier and more effective ways to help
people lose weight and find out if losing weight can help reduce the risk of
fatal heart attacks. We also need to dedicate far more resources to preventing
obesity in the first place."

Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of
California, Los Angeles, said that the current study "provides further evidence
as to why there needs to be global efforts to prevent and treat obesity though
lifestyle modification."

"While obesity is associated with elevations in blood pressure, increased risk
of diabetes and abnormal lipid levels, it has been less clear whether the
increased risk of mortality associated with obesity can be entirely explained
by these well-established cardiovascular risk factors or whether other factors
related to obesity may also be contributing to excess mortality risk," he
noted.

Dr. Murray A. Mittleman, director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research
Unit with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in
Boston, agreed.

"It's not surprising that not all of the risk can be explained by traditional
risk factors," he said. "But no one study is going to definitively answer the
question as to what other mechanisms for risk might be. So the primary issue
would still continue to be working towards overall weight reduction, to reduce
the risk for all of the pathways that we already know go along with obesity."

SOURCES: Jennifer Logue, clinical lecturer, metabolic medicine, British Heart
Foundation, Cardiovascular Research Centre, University of Glasgow, Scotland;
Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D., professor, cardiology, University of California, Los
Angeles; Murray A. Mittleman, M.D., Dr.P.H., director, Cardiovascular
Epidemiology Research Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard
Medical School, Boston; Feb. 14, 2011, Heart, online

HealthDay

Analysis suggests something about carrying extra weight is at play
URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_108807.
html (*this news item will not be available after 05/16/2011)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

News

---

In evidenza

"L'informazione presente nel sito serve a migliorare, e non a sostituire, il rapporto medico-paziente."

Per coloro che hanno problemi di salute si consiglia di consultare sempre il proprio medico curante.