Excess weight and body fat cause cardiovascular disease

Excess weight and body fat cause a range of heart and blood vessel diseases, according to the first study to investigate this using UK Biobank data.

The researchers, led by Susanna Larsson, associate professor and senior researcher at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, studied 96 genetic variants associated with BMI and body fat mass to estimate their effect on 14 cardiovascular diseases in 367,703 UK Biobank participants of white-British descent using Mendelian randomisation.

The study which is a first of its kind was published in the European Heart Journal, shows that as body mass index (BMI) and fat mass increase, so does the risk of aortic valve stenosis – a condition in which the valve controlling the flow of blood from the heart to the body’s largest blood vessel, the aorta, narrows and fails to open fully.

People who had genetic variants that predict higher BMI were at increased risk of aortic valve stenosis, heart failure, deep vein thrombosis, high blood pressure, peripheral artery disease, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation and pulmonary embolism. For every genetically-predicted 1kg/m² increase from healthy BMI, the increased risk ranged from 6% for pulmonary embolism to 13% for aortic valve stenosis.

The researchers also found that risk of cardiovascular diseases increased with the genetic variants predicting increases in fat mass. They add that although these genetic variants can predispose people to be more likely to gain excess weight, the most important factors implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease are diet and physical activity.