Obesity in young men leads to early heart disease
A Swedish study followed 1.6 million young men for over 40 years and showed the average age of heart failure was 46, with those who were overweight or obese before the age of 20 being six to nine times more likely to develop heart failure before middle age. Those who had a BMI of over 35 had a ten-fold increased risk.
The biggest surprise was that a BMI of between 18.5 and 25 is viewed as normal, but the Heart failure risk started to increase significantly with teens who were greater than 20 BMI, leading researchers to question whether such BMI norms were relevant to young people.
Dr. Robert Jones of CWHW stated that people should remember that heart failure is not just an issue of fat, but more an issue of inflammation in the body, causing the fat to stick to the arterial walls.
Annika Rosengren, Professor of Medicine at the Sahlgrenska Academy (Gothenburg, Sweden), led the research.
(European Heart Journal, 2016)
