Young Adults who Maintain Their Weight, Even if Overweight,
Have Lower Risk Factor Levels for Heart Disease in Early Middle
Age
New Orleans, LA, Nov. 8, 2004 – Young adults who maintain
their weight over time, even if they are overweight, have lower
risk factor
levels for heart disease and are less likely to develop metabolic
syndrome in middle age than those whose weight increases, according
to the results of a large multi-center study funded by the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health
and presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.
Metabolic syndrome is a clustering of risk factors that increases
a person’s risk of heart disease. After 15 years, only 3.6
percent of the study participants who had maintained their weight
had developed metabolic syndrome, compared to 18 percent of those
whose weight had increased.
“Young U.S. adults have a major problem with weight gain during these years.
The minimum goal for every young adult is to try to prevent weight gain, even
if he or she is overweight,” said NHLBI Acting Director Barbara Alving,
M.D.
The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA)
study followed over 5,000 men and women for 15 years. Selection
of study participants who
were initially aged 18 to 30 was balanced for sex, race, and education.
CARDIA evaluated
participants at four clinical centers – in Birmingham, AL, Chicago,
IL, Minneapolis, MN and Oakland, CA. This study included data for 2,475
adults who attended every exam but excluded those who were underweight
or very obese
at
the start of the study.
The study examined the relationship over time between weight
and several cardiovascular disease risk factors: high blood pressure,
high glucose
(sugar) levels which
can indicate risk for diabetes, high triglyceride levels, low levels
of good cholesterol, and a large waist. Metabolic syndrome is defined
as having
at least
3 of these risk factors.
Investigators found that on average as body mass index, an indicator
of obesity, increased, adverse changes in these cardiovascular disease
risk
factors occurred. Over the 15 years of the study, these changes produced
substantial differences in risk factor levels.
Normal-weight men who maintained their weight had only a 1 mg/dL
rise per year in triglycerides (harmful fat in the blood) compared
to a
4 mg/dL
per year increase
in those who had gained weight. After 15 years, that translates
into a total increase in triglycerides of 60 versus 15 mg/dL in
those
who gained
compared
with those who maintained stable weight. Normal weight women showed
almost no increase in triglyceride levels when they maintained
their weight,
compared to
an almost 2 mg/dL rise per year for those whose weight had increased.
Of the adults studied, more than 80 percent had gained weight
over the years and had negative changes in heart disease risk factors,
compared to 18 percent
who had maintained their current weight and showed no significant
change in risk factors for heart disease.
“Regardless of whether you are overweight or normal weight
in young adulthood, it’s really important, at a minimum, not to gain any more weight. That’s
a critical part of the message,” said Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., Sc.M. CARDIA
investigator and assistant professor of preventive medicine and of medicine at
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Weight stabilization
may be easier to achieve than significant weight loss for many people, and there
are clear benefits to maintaining stable weight,” he concluded. Lloyd-Jones
presented the results at the AHA’s annual conference.
“The best approach for maintaining weight is to ensure that one’s
physical activity level is high enough to balance the number of calories consumed,” said
Catherine Loria, Ph.D., a nutritionist and epidemiologist with
NHLBI.
To interview Dr. Loria, contact the NHLBI Communications Office
at (301) 496-4236 or e-mail nhlbinews@nhlbi.nih.gov.To interview
Dr.
Lloyd-Jones, contact Elizabeth
Crown at (312) 503-8928 or at e-crown@northwestern.edu.
For more information and tips on maintaining weight:
Aim
for a Healthy Weight Website:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/patmats.htm
NHLBI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the
Federal Government’s
primary agency for biomedical and behavioral research. NIH is a component
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NHLBI press
releases and
other materials including information about heart disease, high blood
pressure, and
high blood cholesterol are available online at www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
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