Even pudgy face heart risk

Source: Agencies  |   2008-12-23  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

JUST a little bit of extra weight can raise the risk of heart failure, according to a United States study published yesterday that calculated the heart hazards of being pudgy, but not obese.

It comes as little surprise that obesity makes a person much more susceptible to heart failure, a deadly condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood throughout the body.

But researchers who tracked the health of 21,094 US male doctors for two decades found that even those who were only modestly overweight had a higher risk of heart problems - and it grew along with the amount of extra weight.

In men who are 1.8 meters tall, for every 3.2 kilograms of excess body weight, their risk of heart failure rose on average by 11 percent over the next 20 years, the researchers wrote in the journal Circulation.

The average age of the men at the outset of the so-called Physicians' Health Study was 53. During the study, 1,109 of them developed heart failure.

Overall, the risk of heart failure increased by 180 percent in men who met the definition of obesity according to their body mass index (having a body mass index of 30 or higher), and by 49 percent in men who met the definition of overweight (having a body mass index of 25 to 30).

Heart failure contributes to 300,000 deaths each year in the US.

Dr Satish Kenchaiah of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and colleagues looked at how cwonditions such as coronary artery disease and high blood pressure can leave the heart too weak or stiff to fill and pump blood efficiently.