Study links larger waist size with heart failure

Study links larger waist size with heart failure
www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-08 09:05:42

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WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. study has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations, adding to the growing evidence that a person's waist size is an important indicator of heart health.
Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, reported their findings online on Tuesday in the Rapid Access Report of the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.
They said that waist size was a predictor of heart failure even when measurements of body mass index (BMI) fell within the normal range.
"Currently, 66 percent of adults in the United States are overweight or obese," explains Emily Levitan, first author of the study. "Knowing that the prevalence of heart failure increased between 1989 and 1999, we wanted to better understand if and how this increase in obesity was contributing to these rising figures."
A life-threatening condition that develops when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body's needs, heart failure (also known as congestive heart failure) is usually caused by existing cardiac conditions, including high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.
Heart failure, which is the leading cause of hospitalization among patients at the age of 65 and older, is characterized by symptoms like fatigue and weakness, difficulty walking, rapid or irregular heartbeat, and persistent cough or wheezing.
The researchers examined two Swedish population-based studies, the Swedish Mammography Cohort (36,873 women aged between 48 to 83) and the Cohort of Swedish Men (43,487 men aged between 45 to 79) who answered questionnaires for information about height, weight and waist circumference.
Over a seven-year period between January 1998 and December 2004,a total of 382 first-time heart-failure events were reported among the women group (including 357 hospital admissions and 25 deaths) and 718 among men (accounting for 679 hospital admissions and 39 deaths.)
The researchers found that based on the answers provided, 34 percent of the women were overweight and 11 percent were obese, while 46 percent of the men were overweight and 10 percent were obese.
"By any measure -- BMI, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio or waist to height ratio -- our findings showed that excess body weight was associated with higher rates of heart failure," explains Levitan.
Further breakdown of the numbers showed that among the women with a BMI of 25 (within the normal range), a 10-centimeter higher waist measurement was associated with a 15 percent higher heart failure rate; women with a BMI of 30 had an 18 percent increased heart failure rate.
In men with a BMI of 25, a 10-centimeter higher waist circumference was associated with a 16 percent higher heart failure rate; the rate increased to 18 percent when men's BMI increased to 30.
Furthermore, adds Levitan, among the men, each one-unit increase in BMI was associated with a four percent higher heart failure rate, no matter what the man's waist size were. In women, she adds, BMI was only associated with increased heart failure rates among the subjects with the largest waists.
Finally, the authors found that the association between BMI and heart-failure events declined with age, suggesting that the younger the person, the greater the impact of weight to heart health.
"This study reinforces the importance of maintaining a healthy weight," says Levitan. "Previous research has looked at various types of heart disease and related health issues, and no matter the particulars of the study, they've all been pretty consistent in determining that excess body weight increases a person's risk of heart disease."
Editor: An