Increasing BMI Tracks With Hypertension Over a Lifetime

More good news.

High blood pressure is a disease of choice for fatsos.

New results from a study tracking medical students for almost 50 years shows that weight gain at any time in their lives increased their risk of developing hypertension. Dr Hasan M Shihab (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD) and colleagues report their findings online November 14, 2012 in Circulation.

"We were able to track body-mass index [BMI] and blood pressure right from the age of about 22 up to age 65, and the big thing here is the length of follow-up, which was up to 49 years," Shihab told heart wire . He noted that the longest follow-up period previously reported for this kind of analysis has been about 23 years.

Obesity in young adulthood conferred a threefold risk of hypertension, even after researchers accounted for lifestyle factors over the 50 years, compared with those who were normal weight, he and his colleagues report. And men who were of normal weight in early adulthood but became overweight or obese in midlife were twice as likely to develop hypertension as men who maintained a normal weight. Perhaps not surprisingly, those who stayed a normal weight were at the lowest risk of developing high blood pressure, the researchers say.

Now we can stop paying to treat the porkers.

Hooray!