Obesity has been blamed for a number of health problems, the most serious being heart attacks. However, a new study has found that obesity, if devoid of high blood pressure, does not heighten the risk of death due to a cardiac stroke or attack.
The study, led by Dr Athanase Benetos and his team from the Center d'Investigations Preventives et Cliniques in Paris, looked into the heart health of 240,000 adults. They studied the occurrence of heart attacks in the subjects in relation to risks like high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.
All the study's subjects went through regular health checkups between 1972 and 1988. Around 42 per cent men and 21 per cent women in the study group were found to be overweight. Five per cent men and 5 per cent women could be classified as obese.
In the follow-up period of 14 years, researchers found 2949 men and 929 women had died due to a heart attack or stroke.
The study showed that those who were overweight, but did not have other risk factors like high blood pressure and diabetes were not more likely to face death due to heart attack as against those with normal body weight.
“The role of obesity and overweight as independent risk factors for (heart attack and stroke) is still debated,” a report published in the journal
Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association said.
But those who were obese or overweight and also suffered from high blood pressure were twice more likely to die due to the heart attack as compared to those who were overweight but had normal blood pressure.
The risk of death did not increase if the subject had excess weight and diabetes, but did if the he or she had excess weight and high blood pressure. The main trigger for death due to heart attacks was found to be high blood pressure.
Dr Benetos said that in view of the findings it is important for high-risk patients to go for a 'treatment that targets both blood pressure and weight reduction'.
But before overweight people can breathe a sigh of relief, here's some food for thought. The rate of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes becomes higher as the excess pounds pile on.
