Daily HealthBeat Tip

Early warning.

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Just being obese might alert middle-age people that they could get heart disease or diabetes after they reach 65.

A study finds obese middle-aged people had more than four times the risk of being hospitalized as senior citizens with coronary heart disease � and eleven times the risk of dying because of diabetes.

Dr. Lijing Yan of Northwestern University looked at data on more than 17-thousand Chicago-area people. The study supported by the National Institutes of Health was in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Yan suspects weight is a warning that blood pressure and cholesterol problems could be coming � and lead to disease:

"Our study is one more reason for people to pay more attention to their weight, even for those who think they are OK � their blood pressure and cholesterol are not high and they are not diabetic." (10 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: February 24, 2006

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