Being Overweight And Obesity Increase Risk For Heart Attack

Does the amount of body fat increase one’s risk for heart disease and heart attack?

Adiposity or body fat is usually measured in terms of body mass index (BMI), which is expressed in weight with reference to one’s height.

Researchers from the University Medical Center Groningen, in the Netherlands, reported in 2010 that certain obese people are not at high risk for heart disease or diabetes. Their study found that in more than 1,300 of the obese patients who took part their study, about seven percent were “metabolically healthy,” which meant that these individuals did not have any history of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, or dyslipidemia (high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels).

Among this group of patients, only one eventually developed heart disease after more than seven years of follow-up. Statistical analysis showed that this low percentage was not significant, or that it was similar to the incidence of heart disease among people of normal weight or overweight.

Another review of 97 studies involving close to three million people all around the world also questioned whether being overweight alone — without metabolic syndrome or other risk factors — is a risk factor for premature death. 

BMI and Metabolic Syndrome

The authors of the 2010 study warned that only a small subset of the obese participants in their research was obese but healthy, and that they were still at risk for other obesity-related conditions, such as arthritis.

Obesity is a chronic disease that plagues about 78 million Americans today, who spend about $150 billion annually on obesity-related complications. Many overweight and obese individuals also have other conditions that increase their risk for heart disease and heart attack, including high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, excess belly fat, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar levels or diabetes. 

In fact, researchers from the Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who examined more than 70,000 people over the course of a few years, found in 2013 that metabolic syndrome was present in only 62 percent of the obese participants, in 40 percent of the overweight and in 10 percent of normal-weight subjects.