Controlling blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels in obese people can help reduce the risk of heart diseases and strokes associated with obesity and being overweight.
The health problems associated with being obese or overweight are numerous. Studies have revealed that obese and overweight people are 40 percent more likely to die prematurely compared to normal-weight people of the same age. Heart diseases, strokes and diabetes are only a few diseases associated with this weight disorder.
In a new study, researchers from Imperial College London found ways in which the risk of developing these diseases can be lowered. Controlling blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol in obese people can help reduce the risk of heart diseases and strokes associated with obesity and being overweight, researchers revealed in a press statement.
This finding was revealed after a team of researchers analyzed some 97 previous studies which had concluded that obese people are more likely to develop heart diseases and strokes because their weight increases the chances of them having high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood glucose.
Addressing a long on-going debate of whether excess weight causes heart disease and stroke through effects on other risk factors, researchers conducted this study to see if treatments that tackle these factors can offset the risks of being overweight.
During the course of the study, they found that high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose account for more than half of the increased risk of heart disease and three quarters of the increased risk of stroke among overweight or obese people. High blood pressure alone accounts for 31 per cent of the increased risk of heart disease and 65 per cent of the increased risk of stroke.
"Our results show that the harmful effects of being overweight or obese on heart disease and stroke partly occur by increasing blood pressure, serum cholesterol and blood glucose. Therefore, if we control these risk factors, for example through better diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, we can prevent some of the harmful effects of being overweight or obese," said senior author Goodarz Danaei, HSPH assistant professor of global health.
According to co-author Professor Majid Ezzati, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, while controlling hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes through medication may be useful, it's not enough to offset the effects of obesity on a person's health. Therefore, physicians need to come up with creative approaches that can curb and reverse the global obesity epidemic.
Previous studies revealed that obesity had more than doubled globally since 1980. Statistics show that one in every three Americans is obese and a total of more than 1.4 billion adults aged 20 and older is overweight or obese worldwide. The researchers had also previously estimated that 3.4 million annual deaths are due to excess weight.
A very recent CDC report noted that though the weight disorder among U.S. adults continues to level off after several years of skyrocketing growth, it is still an epidemic.
"Even though it looks like a slight drop in the percentage of adults who are obese, this difference is not statistically significant," said Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics, according to a Medical News Today report. "This is more evidence that we're not seeing a change in adult obesity.
