WASHINGTON, DC -- June 28, 2017 -- Higher body mass index (BMI) in adolescence may be related to a higher risk of death in mid-adulthood from non-coronary non-stroke cardiovascular diseases such as fatal arrhythmia, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, arterial disease, heart failure, and pulmonary embolism, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.



While there is solid evidence that adolescent overweight and obesity are associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, less is known about the association between BMI and rarer cardiovascular diseases.



Obesity, the most common nutritional disorder in industrialised countries, is associated with an increased mortality and morbidity of cardiovascular disease. This study specifically looked at adolescent BMI and death attributed to cardiovascular diseases other than CHD and stroke.



“Our findings show that adolescents with BMI values well within the currently accepted normal range may still be at future risk of cardiovascular diseases,” said Gilad Twig, MD, Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, Jerusalem, Israel.



“This is important because while CHD and stroke mortality of adults younger than 50 have declined in most western countries in the last 2 decades, non-CHD and non-stroke mortality has increased.”



Researchers from the Israel Defense Forces, Sheba Medical Center, and Hadassah Medical School analysed data collected from 2,294,139 adolescents aged 16 to 19 years in 1967 and followed them until 2011.



Between 1981 and 2011, a total of 32,137 deaths were recorded of which 800 were attributed to non-coronary, non-stroke cardiovascular deaths, whereas 3,178 deaths were attributed to cardiovascular mortality in total.



“Overweight and obesity at adolescence were tightly associated with increased risk for all study outcomes,” said Dr. Twig. “The range of normal BMI is relatively broad and we also found here that adolescents with BMI at the high-normal end had higher risk than those in the low-normal end.”



“Data shows that optimal BMI for adolescents aged 17 years is at the low-normal range,” he said. ““Additional studies are needed to confirm these results in order to re-visit the currently accepted BMI range in adolescents.”



SOURCE: The Endocrine Society