(Press-News.org) Those with the largest waists and hips combined are twice as likely to be affected as those with measurements in the normal range, the findings indicate.
Sudden cardiac death, or SCD for short, occurs without warning, and is caused by a sudden unexpected loss of heart function, which rapidly reduces blood flow around the body, including to the brain. It is distinct from a heart attack, and kills around 300,000 people in the USA every year.
Obesity has long been associated with various unfavourable changes in cardiovascular health, including SCD. But the researchers wanted to find out if a persistent midriff bulge may carry a greater risk of SCD than general obesity as the evidence suggests this body fat distribution may be more dangerous.
They therefore studied almost 15,000 middle aged men and women (45-64 years of age), all of whom were taking part in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study.
ARIC has been tracking the causes of artery narrowing in middle aged Americans since 1987.
All the participants (55% women; 26% African American) underwent a detailed health assessment in 1987-9, and then again in 1990-92, 1993-5, 1996-8, and 2011-13. This included measurements of weight, height, waist circumference, and the waist to hip ratio.
During the monitoring period, which averaged 12.5 years, 253 SCDs occurred. Those affected were in their mid-fifties, on average; one in three was female; and four out of 10 were of African American heritage.
Unsurprisingly, those who died suddenly tended to have a higher prevalence of known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
They also had a higher BMI (body mass index), larger waist circumference, and a larger waist to hip ratio--an indicator of central obesity--than those who did not sustain an SCD.
The risk of SCD was associated with general obesity, but only in non-smokers. And of the measures of obesity--BMI, waist circumference, and waist to hip ratio--waist to hip ratio was the most strongly associated with SCD risk after taking account of other influential factors.
Those with the highest waist to hip ratio had double the risk of SCD of those with a normal ratio.
And unlike BMI and waist circumference, the association between waist to hip ratio was independent of existing coronary heart disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure and other known risk factors.
This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, added to which the precise mechanisms for the association between SCD and central obesity are not known, say the researchers.
But fat around the midriff is thought to be more critical than fat stored elsewhere in the body, because of its influence on inflammation.
INFORMATION:
SAN ANTONIO, TX, USA and Neu-Isenburg/Frankfurt, Germany -- December 10, 2014 -- The German Breast Group (GBG) said nab-paclitaxel (ABRAXANE®) demonstrated significant benefit for patients with early high risk breast cancer when compared to conventional solvent-based paclitaxel. The findings are from the GeparSepto clinical trial sponsored by GBG and conducted together with the German AGO-B study group involving over 1200 patients, which is the largest randomized Phase III study ever completed with nab-paclitaxel and the first one completed in high risk early breast ...
Scientists have developed an ingredient that can be added to foods to make them more filling.
In its first tests in humans, researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow found that the ingredient is effective at preventing weight gain in overweight volunteers.
The ingredient contains propionate, which stimulates the gut to release hormones that act on the brain to reduce hunger. Propionate is produced naturally when dietary fibre is fermented by microbes in the gut, but the new ingredient, called inulin-propionate ester (IPE), provides much larger ...
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A study of more than 12 million acute care hospitalizations over a five-year span found that as quality improved on each of 17 measures so did racial and ethnic equity. Nine major disparities evident in 2005 had mostly or totally disappeared by the end of 2010.
The study, led by Dr. Amal Trivedi of Brown University and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that care for blacks and Hispanics became better and more equitable when comparing hospitals principally serving whites to hospitals principally serving minorities, ...
Despite recent significant gains in health care access throughout the nation, people of color continue to grapple with a disproportionate burden of chronic disease. Two studies in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) indicate that differences in how care is delivered to patients in various racial or ethnic groups have narrowed nationally, but health outcomes remain worse for blacks than for whites.
In his editorial "How to Achieve Health Equity," also published in the just released NEJM, Marshall Chin, MD, MPH, the Richard Parrillo Family Professor ...
WASHINGTON -- A five-minute functional MRI (fMRI) test can pick up neuronal dysfunction in HIV-positive individuals who don't yet exhibit cognitive decline, say neuroscientists and clinicians at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Their study in Neuroimaging: Clinical provides proof-of-concept that imaging can help track neural functioning in this population, known to be affected by the virus and potentially by the treatments meant to keep HIV at bay.
The issue of neural dysfunction in the HIV-positive population is significant, says Georgetown neuroscientist Xiong ...
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Despite years of effort to help American seniors with high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes get their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar under control, new research shows wide gaps between older people of different ethnic backgrounds in all three of these key health measures.
Black seniors in Medicare Advantage health plans are still much less likely than their white peers to have each of the three measures in check, according to a new study published in the December 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
If not well ...
Treatment of acute traumatic brain injury with the hormone progesterone provides no significant benefit to patients when compared with placebo, a NIH-funded phase III clinical trial has concluded.
The results are scheduled for publication Dec. 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, named ProTECT III, involved 49 trauma centers across the United States between July 2009 and November 2013. The study was originally planned to include 1,140 patients, but was stopped after 882 patients because safety monitors determined that additional enrollment would be ...
A study concluded that after five days of treatment with a novel formulation of progesterone acutely administered to patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), showed no clinical benefits.
The paper entitled, "A Clinical Trial of Progesterone for Severe Traumatic Brain Injury," will be published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, December 10, 2014.
This trial, referred to as SyNAPSe, reports on a large prospective randomized clinical trial that investigated the effects of progesterone administered to severe TBI patients," said Raj K. Narayan, ...
A new study out today in the journal Neurology shows that pregabalin is not effective in controlling the pain associated with lumbar spinal stenosis, the most common type of chronic lower back pain in older adults.
"Chronic low back pain is one of the most common reasons why older adults go to the doctor and lumbar stenosis is the leading indication for surgery in this age group," said John Markman, M.D., director of the Translational Pain Research Program in the University of Rochester Department of Neurosurgery and lead author of the study. "While physicians have ...
Eczema, an itchy chronic inflammatory disease of the skin, was not associated overall with short stature in an analysis of data from several studies, although a small group of children and adolescents with severe eczema who do not get enough sleep may have potentially reversible growth impairment, according to a study published online by JAMA Dermatology.
Eczema (atopic dermatitis) affects about 10 percent of children and adults in the United States. The disease results in a number of conditions that could impact growth in children and adolescents, such as sleep impairment, ...
