Obesity may reduce risk of heart failure death
January 25, 2007
NEW YORK - Obese patients
hospitalized with heart failure tend to fare better than their
lean counterparts, new research suggests.
Study suggests that overweight and obese
patients may have a greater metabolic reserve to call upon
during an acute heart failure episode," lead investigator
Dr. Gregg Fonarow told Reuters Health, "which may lessen
in-hospital (death) risk.
Patients were grouped by body mass index
(BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. A normal BMI
is between 20 and 25 and subjects in the present study had
ones ranging from 16 (very thin) to 60 (very obese).
Those with the highest BMI were younger,
were more likely to have diabetes and had higher left ventricular
ejection fraction, meaning that the heart was able to pump
more blood out with each contraction.
The team found that in-hospital deaths fell
as BMI rose, even after accounting for factors including age,
gender, blood pressure, and heart rate.
For case in point, the overall in-hospital
death rate was 5 percent in those with the lowest BMI versus
2.2 percent in those with the highest. For every 5 unit increase
in BMI, the death risk fell by 10 percent.
The team calls for further study to investigate
underlying factors. "These findings," Fonarow noted,
"raise the possibility that nutritional/metabolic support
may have therapeutic benefit in specific patients hospitalized
with heart failure.
Source from:
http://news.yahoo.com
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