May 4, 2016 – Weight and CVD

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Anchor lead: Even slightly overweight people are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports

A very large study following young men for almost two decades shows that even when people are at the high end of normal weights, they’re at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, including sudden cardiac death and strokes.  Mike Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says even at a body mass index of 22, well within normal limits, risk was apparent.

Klag: That’s where there started to be an increase in risk of these cardiovascular disease outcomes. Incredibly powerful study and it raises great concerns because of the increasing weight we’re seeing in adolescents around the world. So even in kids who have a very desirable BMI, young men, there was an increased risk.  Just another sign that we need to take the epidemic of obesity seriously.  Of course those at the upper end of the range, those who were obese, they saw the highest risk of these cardiovascular disease outcomes.     :29

Klag says he’d like to see longer follow up from this study as well as correlation with other risk factors such as smoking, but says the very large numbers of participants provide persuasive evidence.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.