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Risk of heart failure is double in obese people



 
 
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Old September 25th, 2003, 03:34 PM
Daphne
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Default Risk of heart failure is double in obese people

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Researchers have found another reason to watch your waistline: Being even
modestly overweight increases the chances of developing heart failure.

Extreme obesity has already been linked to heart failure, but whether that
was true for milder weight problems wasn't as firmly established.

A study of 5,881 men and women published in Thursday's New England Journal
of Medicine showed that the risk of heart failure is double in obese people
and 34 percent higher in those overweight, compared with those of normal
weight.

Researchers also determined that the risk rose gradually with weight
levels.

"We have one more reason for people who are obese to lose weight and people
who are overweight to move toward normal weight," said one of the
researchers, Dr. Ramachandran Vasan of Boston University School of
Medicine.

Between 2 million and 3 million Americans have heart failure, which occurs
when the heart isn't able to pump enough blood through the body. Symptoms
include shortness of breath, fatigue and swollen feet and ankles.

Some of the risk factors for heart failure - diabetes, high blood pressure
and heart disease - are also linked to excess pounds. The researchers
looked at whether the extra weight influences the risk of heart failure.

They reviewed data from the long-running, government-funded Framingham
Heart Study and compared weight and the rate of heart failure in the study
participants. They were followed for 14 years, and heart failure was
diagnosed in 496 of them.

The researchers calculated that there was an increase in the risk of heart
failure of 5 percent for men and 7 percent for women for each increment of
1 in the body-mass index, a comparison of height to weight. A normal weight
is a BMI of less than 25; overweight is under 30 and obesity is over 30.
BMI is determined by dividing a person's weight in pounds by height in
inches, dividing again by height in inches and multiplying by 703.

About 11 percent of the cases of heart failure in men and 14 percent among
women were due to obesity alone.

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