Overweight people with conditions such as blocked arteries were at a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes — and cost the health system far more — than those with just severe obesity in a large study of Londoners.
(Bloomberg) — Overweight people with conditions such as blocked arteries were at a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes — and cost the health system far more — than those with just severe obesity in a large study of Londoners.
Adults with a body mass index of at least 27 and a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease are five times as likely to have a stroke than people with BMI of 40 or more, the study found. They are also five times as likely to experience any kind of major heart illness than people with a BMI between 30 and 35. The threshold for obesity is a BMI of 30 or greater.
Obesity rates are surging, placing the world on a dire health trajectory even as new medicines show unrivaled potential for weight loss by curbing users’ appetite. Researchers are meeting at the European Congress on Obesity in Dublin this week to discuss the latest findings.
“What’s even more important than the disease of obesity itself is the complications,” said Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, head of health analytics at Lane Clark & Peacock. He led the trial together with researchers from Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk A/S.
Novo sells medicines that are among a new class of weekly injections helping people shed unwanted weight. They’ve kick-started a debate over access, with most US insurers restricting coverage. In the UK, the NHS will provide Novo’s Wegovy to obese people who have a weight-related health condition like cardiovascular disease.
In the study, people at high cardiovascular risk had annual health-care costs more than double those of people with a BMI between 30 and 40.
The researchers analyzed a decade of data from a 2.8 million-person database of residents of northwest London, identifying more than 420,000 people who were obese or overweight and at high cardiovascular risk.
The high-risk group included people who had already had a heart attack or stroke or had peripheral artery disease, and the group was older and had a higher proportion of men. About one in 10 people with obesity have cardiovascular disease, a proportion that increases with age, Pearson-Stuttard said.
The results of a much-anticipated Novo study looking at whether the drugmaker’s semaglutide shot could reduce the risk of having a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke, in patients with obesity and a history of heart disease are due this summer. Semaglutide is sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy.
–With assistance from Suzi Ring.
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