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Larger waists linked to clogged arteries in teens
July 24, 2007
By Joene Hendry
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young adults with large waist circumferences have nearly twice the risk of developing coronary artery calcification, new research suggests. This, in turn, is a risk marker for clogged arteries, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
"Over a period of 15 years, young adults (aged 18 to 24 years) with waist girth greater than 33 inches in men and 30 inches in women had twice the risk for developing coronary artery calcification, when compared with young adults with waist girth less than 30 inches in men and 27 inches in women," Dr. Chong-Do Lee, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, told Reuters Health.
Lee and colleagues used computed tomography (CT) to measure coronary artery calcification - calcium deposited on the walls of the arteries in the heart -- in 2,951 young African American and Caucasian adults. The researchers compared these measurements with waist girth and waist-to-hip ratio measurements previously obtained from the same individuals who had participated in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study.
Reporting in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the researchers noted a dose-response relation between abdominal obesity and the presence of coronary artery calcification 10 and 15 years later. Young adults, both male and female, with greater abdominal girth were also more likely to have clogged arteries, also known as atherosclerosis.
The association between abdominal obesity and the presence of coronary artery calcification remained regardless of age, race, level of physical activity, cigarette smoking, or alcohol intake, the researchers noted. The association also held after further adjusting for differences in the participants' blood pressure, use of high blood pressure medications and the presence of diabetes and fasting blood insulin concentrations, Lee said.
Further research is necessary to determine whether similar associations persist across different ethnic groups or among people with diabetes or high blood pressure.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2007
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