Obesity and High BMI Doesn't Always Mean Heart Disease

MUMBAI: Women who have a good metabolism need not worry about heart diseases - even if they are overweight and have a high body mass index (BMI). Dr Soren Skott Andersen and Dr Michelle Schmiegelow from Denmark drew this conclusion after studying 2,60,000 subjects over a five-year period. The take-home message is that obese women have a window of "opportunity'' to lose weight and avoid developing a metabolic disorder such as diabetes that would increase their risk of heart disease.

The study was presented at the ongoing European Society of Cardiology's annual meeting.

It used Danish national health databases and followed women who had given birth between 2004 and 2009 with no prior history of cardiovascular disease. The women, of average age 31 years, were divided into four categories on the basis of their pre-pregnancy BMI and metabolic disorders.

The researchers found that overweight women (who had a BMI score of over 25) who were metabolically healthy didn't have any increased risk of a heart attack, stroke or a combination of heart attack/stroke/death in comparison with normal weight, metabolically healthy women. Metabolism is the term used to describe life processes that occur within a cell to promote growth. Dr Schmiegelow said, "Being overweight but free of metabolic disorders does not seem to be associated with an increased risk in young women in the short term.''

The researchers, however, said that obese women should guard against developing metabolic disorders such as diabetes because it would increase their risk of heart problems.

Shared From Times Of India

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, September 03, 2013