People under 50 have an increased risk of heart attack or stroke if they have been obese for a decade.
- People under the age of 50 are at greater risk of heart attack or stroke if they have been obese for at least ten years, a new study finds.
- In women under 50 and men under 65, obesity over a ten-year period was associated with a 25 to 60 percent increased risk.
- However, obesity in women over 50 and men over 65 was not associated with an increased risk of these two pathologies. Proof, according to the researchers, that “the earlier the overweight person is treated, the less risk they run.”
“It has long been established that people who are overweight throughout their lives have a greater risk of heart attack and stroke. What was not known was how important the number of years lived overweight was.”
Is there a threshold beyond which obesity necessarily puts us at risk? According to a new study presented last week at the congress ENDO 2024the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society held in Boston, USA, people under 50 have a greater risk of heart attack or stroke if they have lived in a situation of obesity for at least ten years.
What is the impact of weight on cardiovascular risk?
To reach this conclusion, researchers from Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston examined data from patients who had a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25 kg/m2 at least once over a ten-year period (1990-1999), to determine whether their weight had an impact on their risk of myocardial infarction or stroke over the following decades (2000-2020).
In total, the profiles of some 110,000 women and 27,000 men were analyzed, with a mean age of 48.6 years and a BMI of 27.2 kg/m2 in 1990. Among these patients, 6,862 had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, 3,587 had type 2 diabetes and 65,101 had a history of smoking. During the follow-up in 2020, the data revealed a total of 12,048 cardiovascular events.
If obesity is treated early, its complications can be avoided.
“We found that in women under 50 and men under 65, obesity over a ten-year period was associated with a 25 to 60 percent increased risk of heart attack and stroke.”explains Alexander Turchin, lead author of the study, in a communicated.
However, obesity in women over 50 and men over 65 was not associated with an increased risk of either disease. This is evidence, the researchers say, that “The earlier an overweight person is treated, the less risk they face.” “Obesity, at a certain point in life, does not seal a person’s fate. If obesity is treated in a timely manner, its complications can be avoided.”concludes Alexander Turchin.
