Obesity Wipes Out Decades of Efforts to Reduce Threats to Heart

[FarCenter]

By Nicole Ostrow

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Two decades of improved treatments haven’t made a dent in the threat of heart disease in the U.S. because too many adults are obese, according to researchers from the University of Texas.

As the nation’s average body mass index, a measure of excess weight, surged between 1988 and 2006, the number of people with healthy blood pressure and blood sugar levels -- important measures of cardiovascular risks -- declined, according to a study presented today at the American Heart Association conference in Orlando, Florida.

The number of people who are obese has more than doubled in the past 30 years to 72 million people, or 30 percent of U.S. adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The obesity surge has undermined advances such as the introduction of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins in the late 1980s and public health programs that the CDC says have cut smoking rates to 21 percent, from 37 percent in 1970.

“We are getting fat just as fast as we are improving other factors,” said lead study investigator Kami Banks, a cardiology research fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, in an interview. “We as physicians have to address obesity like it’s a medical problem. We have to prescribe things to our patients that help them manage their weight.”

About 17 million adults in the U.S. suffer from heart disease that can lead to a heart attack, according to the American Heart Association. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. for both men and women.

<SNIP>http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=afhQXmQOjVag

[Skittles]

1. here comes the fat-bashing

[thereismore]

2. WTF. nt

[Scout]

3. +100 n/t

[cutlassmama]

5. no doubt. I suggest the OP read "fat politics". It's a great book that shows

obesity does not lead to early death.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. There it is - the problem is in the solution:

"...programs that the CDC says have cut smoking rates to 21 percent, from 37 percent in 1970."

What happens when you quit smoking? You gain weight. And when you have to quit several times before it finally takes, you gain weight several times.

I made serious attempts at quitting 5 times before it took, and each time I gained between 5-10 lbs. It's been five years now, and I'm slowly losing some of that weight, but I'm still 40lbs over what I was when I left the service 35 years ago.

but at least I don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

[GMA]

6. Didn't almost everybody become obese

in the early 90's when the the food pyramid and body fat index--where all fat was bad--were thrown at us?