Even ‘healthy’ overweight people have a higher cardiac risk

Even if a person has healthy blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels, being overweight or obese is still associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease.

That’s according to an analysis of data from more than half a million people in Europe, of whom more than 7,600 experienced coronary heart disease incidents, including heart attacks.

Ioanna Tzoulaki, of Imperial College London, and colleagues compared each person’s body mass index with whether they were metabolically “healthy” or “unhealthy”. People were classed as the latter if they had three or more of a range of metabolic markers, such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, low levels of “good” cholesterol, or a large waist circumference.

Taking a range of factors into account, the team found that, compared to healthy people of a normal weight, those classed as unhealthy had double the risk of coronary heart disease – regardless of whether they were a normal weight, overweight or obese.

People who were deemed “healthy” but were overweight were found to be 26 per cent more likely to develop coronary heart disease, and this rose to 28 per cent in those that were obese.

The findings add to evidence that it is not possible to be “fat but fit”.

“I think there is no longer this concept of healthy obese,” says Tzoulaki. “Our study shows that, if anything, people with excess weight who might be classed as ‘healthy’ haven’t yet developed an unhealthy metabolic profile. That comes later.”

Journal reference: European Heart Journal

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