Body Fat Tied to LV Diastolic Problems

That would be your heart, fat people.

Carrying around too much weight appears to be associated with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction among older individuals, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, researchers found.

After accounting for age, sex, left ventricular mass, hypertension, diabetes, and heart rate, obese individuals (BMI ≥30) had an increased likelihood of diastolic dysfunction compared with their normal-weight counterparts (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.06 to 2.41), according to Marco Di Tullio, MD, of Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues.

A similar degree of increased risk was also found among individuals who were overweight (BMI 25 to 29.9) but not obese (OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.04 to 2.22), the researchers reported in the March 22 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Whereas in the past attention was paid essentially to obesity, our study demonstrates that subclinical signs of left ventricular diastolic function impairment are present in overweight subjects too, and that these abnormalities are independent of associated risk factors," the authors wrote.

Kudos, fatsos.