The history of your body weight predicts the risk of developing heart failure
Obesity and overweight are known risk factors for development of heart failure. Scientists have found that the current body weight does not give complete information, the likelihood of problems increases and excess body weight in the past, even at a young age.
In a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the authors showed that knowledge of what was in people throughout life can help doctors are likely to help physicians in choosing treatment strategies for older patients. Simple questions provide important information in addition to the traditional risk factors of heart failure.
There are more evidence that people who have obesity have recently appeared, are in less danger. Our findings highlight the importance of maintaining a healthy weight throughout life for heart health, says Erin Michos (Erin Michos), Professor at the School of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine).
Doctors routine evaluate the risk factors of heart failure in elderly patients: blood pressure, physical activity level, bad cholesterol, family history, diet and body weight. Michos noted that a single weight estimation is quite informative, but the history of body weight throughout life, gives you so much more.
In their study, Michos and co-authors analyzed data on 6437 the study participants Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). For the participants who at baseline were between 45 to 84 years, were followed for 13 years. Each of them gave information about their weight at age 20 and 40 years.
By the end of the study, heart failure developed in 290 people, 828 people suffered heart attacks or strokes.
It has been shown that the risk of heart failure is increased by 34% with increasing body mass index (BMI) for every 5 kg/m2, which was not a surprise to scientists. However, the authors found that obesity at age 20 years (144 participants) was associated with a more than threefold increase in the risk of heart failure, and obesity at the age of 40 years (716 participants) were doubled this probability compared with people who had normal body mass index at this age.
Our study confirms that maintaining a normal weight throughout life most effectively, and how long the person had obesity is a very informative indicator, concludes Micos.
The scientists noted that their study was designed to demonstrate the Association between weight in the past and heart failure, but it can not show causal relationships between phenomena.
Ukrainian Andrei